Arrangements for Living
by Reichenbach
Summary: Sherlock's living arrangements and relationships change quickly. Perhaps more quickly than he can digest.
1. Chapter 1

Thanks to petratodd for beta, thanks to strawberrypatty for encouragement and help with the ending.

1/13

1\. The Babysitter

Sometimes Molly wondered if they had anything vaguely resembling security anymore for the morgue. Sherlock had carte blanche of course, to come and go as he pleased. And John with him. But apparently Mary had gotten some sort of dispensation too, seeing as how she was attached to John.

"So, we have a plan," Mary announced, staring at her over the body of Mr. Crooks who'd had an unfortunate gardening accident involving tomato stakes and his abdomen. Mary rubbed the baby's head, which was sticking out of the sling tied around her, looking far too excited. "But we need your help."

Molly turned away from the other woman, pulling off her bloody gloves and disposing of them in the proper receptacle. "You can't have a baby down here. She'll be traumatized."

"It's her nap time. We have forty minutes to discuss how we're going to keep Sherlock from blowing himself up or otherwise self-destructing."

Disposing of her coverall and washing thoroughly, Molly grabbed her clipboard and filled in as much information as possible while she still had it all in her head. "I heard the chemical smell eventually dissipated."

"Yes, after he burnt a hundred incense sticks simultaneously to get rid of the stench. And the carpet is still blue." She grabbed Molly by the sleeve and dragging her toward the exit that lead to the rest of the hospital. "And Mrs. Hudson says he hasn't paid the rent in two months. Then John had to pay his mobile bill because it got shut off because he can't be arsed to deal with due dates."

Molly winced. She knew Sherlock had been… becoming a bit flighty lately, but the rent and the mobile phone were new to her. She'd heard about the stuffed chimney, the goat brains in the bathtub and the requisitioning of John's old room for various dental plaster molds of stab wounds. Molly thought it looked like an exotic dildo farm, but she said nothing. And the chemical explosion. And the carpet incident. "So what is my part to be in all of this."

That bright, evil smile spread across Mary's face. "You're going to move in with him."

Molly held up both of her hands. "No, no no. We're not like that."

"We know."

"And I am NOT his mother."

"He just needs someone to look after him for a bit. It isn't forever," she pleaded. "We've already spoken to Mrs. Hudson about getting the mold and the wet removed from the C flat, and we're going to do a bit of a remodel. Then we are going to move down there so we can babysit the five year old consulting detective."

The last made Molly giggle. "Do NOT let him hear you say that out loud." But then she frowned. "But he's not. He's grown. He just… has some issues."

They got to the hospital canteen, which was mostly empty. Mary contemplated her choices (or lack of choices) for something to eat and drink before she had to nurse again.

"Yes. Issues. With running his own life. I found a moldy cup of tea on the toilet the last time I visited." She made a face. "He's got all his brain power going onto all his problems and puzzles, and he's forgotten about little things like paying rent and washing dishes."

"So I'm going to be his nanny and his housekeeper?" Even Molly had her limits.

"Oh no. That wouldn't be fair at all. It's just your job to order him to do it. I can get you an actual whip to crack, if you like."

Molly found herself giggling again. "No, no. I can't. As much as I want to. Er-crack the whip. Not move in with him. I mean, I am not opposed-but he's never given any indication-What I mean is, we're just friends."

Paying for juice, a yogurt and some unidentifiable fruit thing, Mary tried to hide a knowing smile. "Yes, yes. Just friends. But it's just for a bit. Until the remodel is done. Come on… for me and John, so we don't have to worry about him…"

Molly grabbed something to eat for the sake of being social, even though she wasn't really hungry. "You make him sound… I don't know. Dull. Or infantilized. Even if he did nearly explode a portable toilet in the flat."

"He just needs someone to tell him 'no' for a while. You know, place a few limits here and there. Remind him of what month it is and get him to actually write Mrs. Hudson a cheque."

They sat down at one of the tables with actual chairs, instead of the booths, so there'd be room enough for the baby. "He's a grown adult. I think he has to learn how to take care of himself, anyhow," Molly pointed out.

"Oh yes, the last time we did that, John dragged him out of a drug den, and he was an annoying, miserable bastard while he got himself clean. It's just… we're all worried about him because we love him. Not in a… childish way. As some man-child who can't take care of himself. But… I don't know. He and John are as much of a unit as John and I are. And I'd do anything for him. And so would you."

And there it was. The drop of the other shoe. Now she really couldn't turn the request down. "I will have to see how he feels about cats. Because if it's between him and my cat, I'm taking Toby every time." Human beings were difficult, and she was clumsy around them. But cats didn't care that she stumbled over her words. Toby had outlasted more boyfriends than she cared to think, and he'd probably outlast her strange association with Sherlock Holmes as well.

Mary licked her spoon then scraped at the inside of the empty yogurt container. "He likes them. He enjoys their devious ways and standoffishness. Says they're the perfect pets."

Molly was surprised. "You've put a lot of thought into this."

"No battle plan survives the first encounter with the enemy. But we've done our best to account for every possible scenario."

Molly sighed. Somehow she sensed 'we' was the royal 'we' and pertained only to Mary Watson.. "I'm going to regret this, aren't I?" Taking a sip of her tea, she put it down on the table with more force than necessary. "I suppose it is better to regret what you have done, than what you haven't done."

Mary punched her arm gently. "That's the spirit."

##

Molly stopped off to see Sherlock on her way home from work. She hated how full the tubes were when she got off of the day shift, but she wouldn't be on nights again until Stanna got back from maternity leave. Babies, babies everywhere. Sometimes, when she thought about how the expanding uterus pushed organs upward into the lungs, she thought growing a living being inside of you was a ridiculous thing to do. They took up SPACE and shifted your organs around. Having your organs shifted couldn't possibly be natural. Despite how the human race reproduced, she was still suspicious of this whole arrangement.

Just the thought of shifting organs made her rub her abdomen. Her parts would stay where they were. Maybe. Probably.

She thought about her current love life. Most likely, then.

Successfully navigating both the full car and the tragic push of people trying to get up to street level, she made it to Baker Street in, perhaps, record time.

Mrs. Hudson was yelling. That much was evident before she even opened the door. John had given her a copy of his key after the first time Sherlock went missing and was discovered in a drug den. The second time he went missing Mary had given her a stun gun, should she need to electrify him into better behavior. She'd thought Mary was being funny again. But the way Mrs. Hudson was yelling, she wasn't so sure.

Gripping onto her bag for dear life, she took the steps as slowly as she could, praying none of them creaked. It sounded heated up there.

"I'll fix it!" Sherlock shouted back.

"You're darned right you'll fix it! You'll fix it right now, Sherlock Holmes. Or so help me…"

"What? You'll call my brother again?"

Molly froze a few steps from the top.

Mrs. Hudson was officially worked into a lather. "I will call your brother, I will call John, I will call… THE POLICE."

Molly giggled. It sounded like she was calling out the Navy and the Marines and the Army.

She stopped, though, when she realized they were both staring at her. "Sorry. SORRY." She smiled sheepishly. "But it is a little funny?"

Mrs. Hudson pointed down at her feet. "THIS is not funny." Her finger was nearly at Sherlock's nose a moment later. "I should not be able to see you through my ceiling. I will be staying with my sister until it is repaired."

Molly crept into the sitting room and looked down through the hole in the carpet, the floor board, part of a support joist, ceiling board, plaster, and finally into Mrs. Hudson's kitchen. "It's not… that bad?" she tried to offer. "It just needs a little patching?" she continued with half a shrug.

Flustered, Mrs Hudson went to the door, throwing her hands up. "If it's not fixed in two days, TWO DAYS, SHERLOCK HOLMES, you will be back living under a bridge! I promise it!"

She hobbled back downstairs as quickly as her arthritic hip would allow. Which left Molly clutching the strap of her bag, staring at Sherlock over the hole. "So, um… shall I start searching for contractors that work on short notice?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "She won't throw me out."

"She was quite serious about you living under a bridge." She didn't say again. She'd learned SOME tact in years of dealing with Sherlock.

He turned away from her and walked to the desk he used to share with John. "I wasn't living under that bridge. I was living in a basement at Montague Street. I was on a case."

Just like the drug house, Molly thought. Yes, he'd been living under a bridge.

Rifling through papers, he ended up just pushing the whole lot onto the floor. Several fluttered then dropped down the hole. "That beam is hardly structural. I don't know what she's complaining about."

"Sherlock-you put a hole in your floor, and her ceiling, and there is a smoking black mess on her linoleum. This is after you ruined a carpet, nearly asphyxiated yourself and her with chemicals, and made the whole place smell like you were covering over a bong party with the amount of incense you burned. I think a normal person would have shot you by now." It had come out of her mouth before she'd thought it through. At least she'd been calm when she'd said it. She hadn't even reached for the Taser, or moved to slap him.

"You're siding with her, aren't you?" he found a business card among the few remaining possessions on his desk. "You would."

Staring up at the ceiling (which had pencils stuck to it) she took a few deep breaths before walking over to the sofa and slumping into it. "I'm not siding with anyone. But you're either deliberately trying to destroy this house because you're a petulant man-child, or you're an idiot."

He squinted, making a face at her.

She didn't look away. She was well past being cowed by him. "Mary did give me a Taser, if you should get out of hand."

Flipping the card back and forth in his fingers, he leaned against the desk, obviously not doing whatever it was that had launched him into the disturbance of the papers. "What are you here for?"

Molly tried not to let it bother her. "That's not a very polite way to start off a conversation."

"You don't have a case for me; I don't see a file sticking out of your bag." He waved a hand around flippantly..

"Well, I saw Mary today, and we got to talking-"

His eyes narrowed again. "She wants you to move in here."

"See? I told her it wouldn't work, that you're just too-"

"Volatile? Uncontrollable? Childish? Rude? Churlish? Imp-"

"Lost in your tantrum to let me finish a sentence?"

"Fine. Go on."

"You know, you've been acting like a self-destructive idiot since John and Mary went on their sex holiday-honeymoon-now you have ME doing it." She'd never get those words out of her head ever again, now that she'd seen it on the blog. "And I figured you'd pull yourself out of this-this-self-pity phase and do something productive."

He gestured to the hole in the floor. "I am being productive!"

She pressed her lips together. "By nearly killing your landlady?"

"It was an experiment!" He threw his hands in the air, as if no one could possibly understand him.

Molly sat up straight. "Yes. Well. I can see that John is very important to you, and that him living here provided you with several things you are currently without: friendship, companionship-" Sherlock opened his mouth.

Molly held up a finger to stop him. "Don't you dare. Let me finish. Companionship, body guard, nursemaid, mother hen and someone to tell you when you are being a self-important, ridiculous idiot. Toby and I will be moving in this weekend." She stood up, pulled the strap of her bag back onto her arm and marched toward the door. Turning around in a huff she gave him an evil look. "And that card in your hand had better be the phone number for a contractor, because if you get distracted and my cat falls through the floor because the hole is still there? I will taze you. A lot."

##

When John got home, he knew Mary had done something. She had that smile on her face as she pulled a casserole out of the oven. They seemed to have casserole every night, but he never said anything. She was the one home with the baby, therefore if he ate forty-seven different kinds of casserole before she went back to work, so be it. And he did miss her at work. But she was still on maternity leave until the end of the month.

He kissed her on the cheek. "What have you done?"

One eyebrow arched as she slid the pan onto the table. "I haven't done anything."

"No, that's the face of someone who's done something and is now trying to choke back a shit-eating grin over it." He'd lived with Sherlock. He could spot these things.

The smile spread all over her face and she shook her clenched fists in front of her. "I got Molly to move in with Sherlock," she sung in gleeful triumph.

John's bottom hit the kitchen chair, mainly so there'd be something supporting him before his legs gave out. "You-why-I thought we LIKED Molly."

She was nearly bursting with glee. "No, no. It's a fantastic plan."

"This is the worst plan." And he'd lived with Sherlock. He knew about terrible plans.

She sat down on his lap, her arms twisting around his neck. "Oh don't worry about Molly." She kissed his cheek. "I gave her a Taser." She stood up quickly before he could swat at her behind.

"Woman!" He ran a hand through his hair. "This is going to end badly. This is going to end so badly, and the fallout is going to look like nuclear winter."

She pulled the lid off the pan and licked a bit of the sauce off of her thumb. "You just don't understand genius when you see it," Mary moaned desperately.

"Apparently not. Because I think you and Sherlock are both are the reason why I have grey hairs."

In the next room, the baby made those first squeaking noises of waking. The ones before the crying started. He slipped over and picked her up before she could even start. With a couple of back rubs she made a few audible huffing noises and was silent. "You know, it's bad enough that I'm actually contemplating living in the same building as that madman again."

"That madman is your best friend, and you love him, and I've already called about mold removal and remodeling." Mary called from the kitchen.

John looked down at the other important woman in his life. "I am surrounded by people who are going to be the death of me," he told her in that sing-song voice that the baby liked so much.

"What?" Mary called again.

"I love you and you're pretty?" he said as he walked into the kitchen.

"Good answer." She put some plates on the table. "Do you want to feed her? I have some breast milk in the refrigerator. It only keeps for six weeks frozen, so I'm trying to keep after it."

"No, we don't have any breast milk in the refrigerator. I put it in my cereal this morning."

"John!" She hit him with her napkin. "Now's not the time to experiment. I've got all pumping sessions carefully planned for the next month."

"It wasn't on purpose!"


	2. Chapter 2

2\. Move-in

After clearing out the dental plaster stab wound models, Molly set herself and Toby up in John's old room. He'd left a few things-alarm clock, some books, an empty trunk that seemed to serve no other purpose than to sit on at the foot of the bed. It had made things a bit homier. She'd only brought a few bags of things from home. Clothes, the book she was reading. She didn't plan on this being a long 'visit,' so she had left just about everything where it was in her flat.

Toby had arrived with more kit than her.

She'd tried to estimate how long it could possibly take to remove all the mold from the basement flat, then rip pretty much everything down to the studs and redo the whole thing for a family of three.

When she heard the screeching of the violin downstairs-random hissing sounds that were dissonant and ugly-she prayed that Mary and John had some magical way to hurry things along. Because there were some things that earplugs just didn't block out.

Toby crawled around the bed, up on the headboard, then lept onto the book case, exploring his new territory. She'd already set down the law with Sherlock. If any harm came to her cat, she would harm him. She'd worked on a lot of murder victims. She knew just how much pain the human body could endure before death. And she could make that happen for him.

Of course it had come out as a stuttering, tripping, falling over of words, but he'd gotten the point. She'd like to say that it was only Sherlock, and his brilliance that tied up her tongue. But really, it was everyone. Every time she meant to say something and wasn't at all angry, and it wasn't pre-planned, it was all a mess. If she was in a rage, it came out perfectly well-as Tom had discovered the night they'd broken up for good. They'd gone from 'needing some space' to 'done for good' in one screaming match where she'd done the majority of the screaming.

Sometimes she thought she was kind of a horrible person. Sometimes. But she donated money to animal welfare societies and it eased her guilt.

She looked around at the humble room. "Well, Toby. This is it. Our little slice of home until Mary and John can get back to babysitting Sherlock. What do you think?"

Toby didn't even look at her when she said his name. Cats ignoring her stung a lot less than people ignoring her. Mostly because she'd wake up in the middle of the night with Toby on her chest, staring down at her creepily. That's just the way cats were.

"Well, let's go down and make dinner." But then she thought about what Mary had said. "I mean-lets go downstairs and have Sherlock make dinner."

Just in case, Molly grabbed her phone. The odds of Sherlock actually knowing how to cook were probably slim, and if that were the case, then he would at least be paying for takeaway. Right after he wrote Mrs. Hudson a cheque for the backed rent.

She wasn't forward, but she could do it on a limited basis, she supposed. Order someone around. Mary had reminded her yesterday about not saying please. Please to Sherlock was a suggestion, not an order. 'Please' worked wonders with her staff, but they tended to be reasonable people. Clerks and attendants enjoyed a please and thank you. Sherlock was as stubborn as a mule and she was here to force him to get himself together. She had a job, and she would do it. And then Mary Watson would owe her many favors, the least of which would be some very, very good wine.

Something crashed downstairs.

She drew in a deep breath, preparing to face whatever new shenanigan Sherlock was engaged in.

Mary Watson may have owed her a very long holiday in a very warm place if this renovation took any longer than a month.

"Sherlock!" she called from the top of the steps. "Whatever you've done, you'd best undo before I get to the bottom of the steps!"

Molly held the door open for Toby, who made absolutely no inclination to come with her, down into the madness that was Sherlock Holmes, bored and self-destructive.

She gasped when she got to the bottom of the steps. "WHY is the coffee table in pieces?"

Sherlock was lying on the sofa, his arm thrown over his eyes. "Why not? Nothing means anything."

Maybe she'd kill someone just so he'd have a case. He hadn't helped her move her few bags in. He hadn't even offered her a glass of water when she arrived at noon, much less lunch. He'd moaned and puttered and swished his dressing gown around like a drama llama until she'd retreated upstairs.

"You're having an existential crisis?" She couldn't believe him right now. She really couldn't. "Call Greg, see if he has anything for you. Call anyone. Do something. Those fingers I brought you last week should still be usable for something."

"The fingers were incinerated in the toaster."

"There is NO way that pertains to detective work."

"You say that now, until someone is murdered by a toaster, and you need to pull prints off the burnt fingertips of the unfortunate toaster murderee."

She was getting a migraine. "You just like setting things on fire."

He didn't respond. And it was a good thing too. She needed the breathing room. br /In the kitchen, she dug around for the kettle. "Why is there a potted plant in this kettle?"

"Why not? I don't use it."

She would have asked just how he made tea, without an electric kettle, or even a serviceable kettle for the stove, but she was deeply afraid of the answer. She often worked on long-dead and well-decayed corpses of both murder victims and people who had not been found in their homes for ages. One of her most recent clients had been mostly liquified. That said, she found the state of his kitchen appalling.

She sighed, hands on her hips. "I am going to have to nuke water in the microwave, aren't I?"

His arm was draped over his eyes in dramatic despair. "Don't open the microwave."

Again, she didn't ask. There was only so much stress she could handle in a single day. "Alright. Here is what is going to happen. I am going to order takeaway. YOU are going to do the dishes."

"Dishes don't matter," he moaned from the sofa.

"They matter to me! You don't have a single clean one, and I really don't care if YOU get some ungodly disease that ends you on my dissection table, because you're getting on my last nerve, and I've only been here for six hours. I, however, can do without every bacterial infection known to man while living here."

She was proud of herself. All the words were coming out without a single stumble, mostly because she was working up to a place where she wanted to slap him silly again. Sherlock Holmes had thought he had seen her angry, but there were hidden depths within Molly Hooper that could one day lead her to kill a man. Probably Sherlock, if things kept on how they were.

Sherlock made no move to get off the sofa.

Marching into the living room, she stepped over the broken furniture pieces and grabbed him by the shirt, twisting it. "Dishes. Now."

His nose wrinkled. "Or what, you'll Taze me?"

"I hear the loss of bladder control is quite magnificent." Or so she'd heard from a television show once. She very much hoped it was true.

"Just throw all the dishes out. Buy new."

Letting go of his shirt, she grabbed the top of his ear and twisted. "I am not John. John might have done all the dishes so that you all didn't die of sepsis or MRSA or something even worse. I am willing to pull my fair share in this roommate situation from hell, but you have to do your part too."

He winced and sat up. "God, you're evil when you're on a tear!"

But she didn't let go of his ear. She dragged him to the kitchen by the cartridge until he was standing in front of the sink. "This is a sponge. This is washing up soap. These are the dirty dishes, and I expect you to use hot water. I am going to Mrs. Hudson's for some bloody hot water and a tea bag. I expect to see progress when I return."

zyx

Mary rocked the baby in her carrier, which sat on the replaced coffee table. She and Molly sat comfortably on the sofa, enjoying the quiet flat. "The place is cleaner," Mary noted.

Molly took a sip of her beer. "We compromised. I let him have his ridiculous stacks of paper if he helped me make sure we didn't go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink."

Mary's jaw dropped. "Sherlock Holmes compromised."

"You just need to know which ear to twist." Molly blushed a bit.

Laughing, Mary picked up her own drink, milk. "I think John's far too passive-aggressive. He'll complain, but that's all he'll do. This place must have been a hell hole when they both lived here."

Molly shrugged. "I don't know. I don't think Mrs. Hudson would let it get that bad." She pointed to the recently cured new floor boards. "I think she really might have turned him out if he hadn't gotten that fixed. But now he knows contractors are going to be working on the bottom floor. He doesn't know it's you two moving. Well, you three." She looked down at the drooling child who was staring at her. Babies were lovely. When you could give them back when you were done. "Mrs Hudson told him it was because he never pays the rest on time. He was fuming."

"He's really taken to you being here. Far more easily than I thought he would."

Shrugging, Molly put down her bottle. "I think he was lonely. He wouldn't admit it. But he even talks to Toby, that's how lonely he is sometimes. Speaking of renovations, how is it going?"

Wiping away the baby's slobber, Mary chuckled. "John wanted nothing to do with the design. Now he's complaining there's too much blue."

"I thought the kitchen tiles you wanted were lovely. Who hates cobalt blue?"

"John Watson does, apparently."

They both chuckled.

Eventually Molly leaned back into the sofa, far more relaxed than she'd been in a few weeks. "It's nice to talk to… someone. Another…"

"Woman?" Mary supplied helpfully.

"Adult," Molly settled on.

Mary made that exaggerated, radiant face that overcame her so much of the time. She seemed so damned happy. Not that Molly begrudged her. But she wondered where that type of contentment came from. "Oh, I think you like it."

"Babysitting a brilliant man who thinks magic fairies bring his tea in the morning?"

"Also having company. And the challenge. And it won't be for too much longer. Now that everything is stripped, they can start the renovation proper. And I'm good at moving. I can have us ready to go in two days."

"I've lived in my flat for seven years. I think I would need a dumpster if I moved. You just collect so much stuff." She looked around this flat. Some of her things had migrated from upstairs to the living area. A few of her books and journals (but Sherlock had been reading them too), a cat-shaped clock on one of the tables since they seemed to be opposed to time-keeping devices down there. One or two other reminders from home. But the rest of it was Sherlock's. And it was a lot. "I think if he ever moved out of here it would take more than a dumpster. Look at all this stuff."

"Bomb flat, start over," Mary instructed.

Toby brushed his cheek against the baby carrier. "aww, that's sweet," Molly said. "She thinks she owns the baby carrier."

"Aww, it is sweet." Mary gave the cat's head a little rub, but Toby ducked her hand and jumped off the table and walked away. Mary laughed. "I see why they get along so well. They're equally standoffish. They probably have little contests while you're at work."

Molly tapped the mouth of the bottle against her chin, thinking about the prospect. "I think I consciously choose not to think about what he does when I am gone. I think he knows everything is negotiable except for invading my personal space and harming my cat. He can stay up all night playing his racket, and I'll make breakfast before he goes to bed, I've even taken over the vacuuming as long as he does the dishes. It's not terrible. But I used to babysit. They eventually start testing their boundaries."

Mary unbuckled the baby seat and pulled the little girl out as soon as she got fussy, unabashedly unbuttoning her shirt and letting the girl latch on. "You are the one who keeps saying he's not a child."

"He's not. he just behaves like one. That's my professional opinion." She had to smile at Mary-she really didn't care for propriety. It was just the two of them. Molly had seen far more breasts and was quite frankly immune to them. At least they were being useful at the moment.

"Love, you work with dead people."

"I know," she said with a giggle. It was her second beer, she must have been feeling it. It was so nice that Mary didn't mind her morbid sense of humor. It made things so much less awkward than when she tried to talk to real people-well, people outside of the orbit that ran around Sherlock.

She scrunched her nose as she looked at the cat clock. "They've been gone for six hours."  
"John's been gone overnight with him a few times. Then I get to make excuses at work for him. Oh, I'm sorry, your only surgically trained GP has faffed off with his best friend. They're probably getting shot at, or maybe making out. It has yet to be determined."

Molly's hand went to her mouth. "You don't think-"

Soothing the baby, Mary shook her head. "Oh lord no. Sherlock's too repressed and John's perpetually insisting he's not gay, as if there were only two options. I just like to tease John about it. He gets so indignant. It's adorable. Those two can have their little adventures, or trysts or whatever. I know who he comes home to."

Putting her head onto the sofa's headrest, Molly curled up, feeling warm and contented. "I know who Sherlock comes home to. A human skull and my cat." She giggled in exhaustion. "I'm just the person who crisps the bacon the way he likes it."

Tutting, Mary reached out and squeezed her arm. "It's not like that at all. You're his friend. He listens to you. He does dishes for you. That's practically wearing his team jacket, where I'm from."

Molly didn't quite catch the reference, but got the general meaning. "Well, it's peaceable. The first few days it got tense now and again. But not some huge standoff like the first day. Of course getting a new kettle helped. I wasn't nearly as cranky with proper amounts of caffeine."

"Oh god, I live off caffeine now. I've skipped tea and moved straight to energy drinks. I have a case under my side of the bed. I just slam it down before I even get up, and by the time I've toddled off to the nursery it starts to kick in. And before you give me a line about it being expressed in breast milk like John did, I have done absolutely everything I'm supposed to do with her, the world can let me have some caffeine before I turn murderous."

"Figuratively, I hope."

"Oh neither of those two men should push their luck with me," she said knowingly.

Molly decided not to question it further.

The downstairs door swung open, bounced on its hinges and came flying back toward the door frame. Neither of them heard it actually close, though. "Well, that would be them," Mary pointed out, gently coaxing the baby to unlatch from her breast. Below the feet on the steps were uneven, almost dragging at points. Despite this, Mary calmly buckled the baby back into her seat, plunking a dummy in her mouth so she wouldn't fuss, breast still bared for the world to see.

Just as the flat door flew open and John dragged Sherlock through the threshold, Mary tucked her breast away and clipped up her nursing bra. She left her shirt unbuttoned as she rushed over to them.

Molly was right behind her, pulling a chair over for John to dump Sherlock into. He was pale and there were two gashes on his forehead. She hoped that's where the majority of the blood was coming from, because there was another spread of red across his white shirt. His coat had been lost somewhere along the way.

"John, what the hell?" Mary asked, grabbing Sherlock's wrist to check his pulse.

Huffing, John put his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. "He's fine-he'll be fine. He had a little help getting down a set of cement steps. Smashed into the wooden gate at the bottom."

Molly pressed a clean dishcloth to his forehead. "He's going to need antibiotics. There's wood in this wound. And I see something sticking out the other."

Mary pulled the fabric away and winced. "It's not that deep. We can get it. Sherlock-you idiot. You should have gone to the hospital."

Shaking his head, John took a few more deep breaths and went for a box in the hall cupboard. "The only way you can drag him there is if he's unconscious."

"Well, good job, Husband Mine, he's almost there."

Sherlock groaned. "Shut-Up. I'm sitting right here."

John started tossing bottles of antiseptic, analgesic and pain killers over his shoulder. "It's all expired. Dammit."  
Making a face, Mary grabbed the nappy bag and dumped it. Beneath six changes of clothes, a breast milk pump, more nappies than she'd ever need and other miscellaneous items, came out a first aid kit.

"Molly, antiseptic?" she tossed a bottle, which Molly barely caught. Pulling out two vials and a handful of sterile packaged syringes, she handed them over to John. "I have something to knock him out too, but I think he should suffer."

"Locals should be fine. Why is this stuff in the baby bag?"

"You're complaining now?"

He shook his head, like they'd be discussing this later.

The baby started fussing behind her, protesting a meal interrupted. "Well, you two are grownups. I'll leave you to it. She's hungry and my boobs are leaking." Before picking up her child, she unclipped her nursing bra and popped out her other breast, having no care for who saw.

"Grownups?" John asked as he examined the piece of brittle, dusty wood sticking out of Sherlock's side, just below his ribs. "That's reassuring."

Mary made a face. "You're both medical professionals. Until I return from maternity leave I am just The Milk Lady." She scowled at Sherlock who was wincing every time John poked around the edges of the wound. "You're interrupting my precious bonding time with my child."

Sliding on latex gloves, Molly began flushing the head wound. "I'm sure she doesn't mean it," Molly consoled Sherlock. But then she looked over at Mary, whose lips were still pressed together in a solid pout. "Ok, she means it. But I'm sure you didn't intend to interrupt feeding time. But you are getting blood on the carpet. Mrs. Hudson may have a problem with that."

Sherlock groaned. "Ugh. Just let me die."


	3. Chapter 3

Sherlock was sleeping in his bed semi-comfortably. Curled up on his good side, Toby was asleep on his hip, and Molly had kept the bedroom door open so she could hear him if he woke. He was mostly alright. Concussion, neck sprain from having his head snapped back, bumps, bruises, puncture wound. A course of strong antibiotics and some rest with continued TBI checks, and he'd be alright. His stubborn head had endured worse.

Molly kept the lights out in the flat, except for the small one next to the fireplace, out of the line of sight from his room so it wouldn't bother him. She read through her novel. She'd started it after Mary and John had left, Mary not-so-teasing her husband about letting his best friend get killed.

Now Molly was half-way through the book. It had sounded so nice when the book club had picked it for the month, but it had turned into one of those emotionally manipulative stories about teens with cancer.

Her father had died of cancer.

She wondered if she ought to just chuck the thing into the fireplace or finish it, to say she had.

"Ungg…"

And that sound be the sound of Prince Charming waking from his beauty rest.

"Are you alright in there, Sherlock?" Without care for the condition of the book, she flipped the book over and set it face down on the little round table next to her. "I can get you something, if you need it."  
He groaned again. "I haveta…nnnggh. Bathroom."

She went to the door. "Need help sitting up?"

"The cat's sleeping."

"I'll grab him." She reached for Toby, who had attached himself to Sherlock's leg like an unfortunate fury tumor.

"Nooo. He's sleeping."

Molly bit her lips, trying not to smile. Sherlock wasn't quite all with it, he was injured and full of painkillers, and he was worrying about waking a cat. "I'll snatch him up gently." She slid her hand under Toby, touching Sherlock's bony hip, and pulled the cat up like a limp little sack. Placing him on the bed behind Sherlock, Toby finally woke and let out a grumpy meow of protest.

"Seeeee."

She held a hand out to Sherlock. "Let's get you sitting up. Don't worry about Toby, he'll be sleeping in the the nice warm spot you've just vacated in a moment."

Sherlock rubbed the side of his face, but let Molly crane him into a sitting position. "That fence fought hard."

He got to his feet on his own, wobbly though he was.

"You'll be happy to know they caught the art thieves, though. John nearly put the one who pushed you into the hospital. The other, um... shot his dick off." She made an anguished face, just thinking of it, but couldn't repress a giggle.

Sherlock laughed then winced, holding his side. "Dare I ask?" He leaned against the doorway for a moment, catching his breath.

"The way Greg tells it, he tried to put the gun down the front of his trousers to help his mate with John, and boom."

Sherlock's shoulders froze and his face twisted in agony as he tried not to laugh. He coughed and moaned, and reached for her shoulder to balance on as she turned on the light in the bathroom. "Stupid-criminal tricks."

"That's one thing to call them." He stumbled past her into the bathroom. "This is as far as I go." As a friend, at least.

"But if you need anything, let me know. Make sure you hit the bowl," she teased. "There are certain things I refuse to clean up."

A tired, lop-sided smile spread on his lips, and he shut the door right in her face.

zyx

She got Sherlock comfortable on the sofa, with tea, more painkillers and some toast. She wanted to see how dodgy his stomach was before she made him real food. She wasn't completely devoid of memory of the things she'd learned in school, and the propensity for concussions and medications to cause nausea and vomiting was not lost on her. And she had a feeling Sherlock's side would not appreciate the vomiting.

Molly had really only worked with living patients during her rotations, before a mentor explained she was an exceptional medical mind, but a horrific doctor. Molly had to agree-she had absolutely no bedside manner, and had ended up stumbling over her words and feeling desperate panic on everything from a routine health screening to telling someone that they had a terminal illness.

Being told to specialize in death had actually been a relief to Molly Hooper. The dead didn't stare at her expectantly while she tried to get herself together. If there was no talking, there was no awkwardness. She could just get to work.

But here she was with a live one for a few days. It wouldn't be so bad. Maybe. "Keeping everything down alright?" she asked casually.

"I'm ready to trade up to biscuits," he joked, eating down the last cracker.

"We'll see. Maybe some soup first."

"John lets me eat biscuits-"

She made a face at him. "You're even going to try it on me?"

"Maybe."

Toby hopped up into his lap and curled right back up again, not giving any mind to having been deposed just a bit earlier. "Aww, he wants to take care of you."

Sherlock didn't have any smart remarks for that. He simply put a hand gently on the cat's head and sipped his tea.  
Molly smiled as she retreated into the kitchen to find something like a tin of chicken soup.

When she finally found a saucepan and something she could heat up, her phone buzzed. She pulled it out. The time read 2:13 am, and the caller was John Watson. "Hello?" She asked quietly as she turned on the cooker.

"How's our action hero doing?"

"Sort of up and about." John must have known roughly when he'd come around. "Toby's keeping him company right now."

"NO biscuits. Anything with sugar in it and he'll be vomiting."

"I already told him no. I take it this isn't his first concussion."

"If they gave punch cards for those sort of things, he'd have earned a free cappuccino by now."

Even though the subject was morbid, she cracked a smile. "And he isn't worried about Traumatic Brain Injury and his his massive intelligence?"

"I don't know. He always brushes it off. I think he hasn't come to terms with his own mortality yet."

Molly stirred the soup. "Well, I wish he'd hurry up with that. I nearly had a heart attack today."

John hesitated in responding. "You'll get used to it?"

"Mary didn't sound very used to it."

"Apparently *I* am in trouble for him nearly dying. Listen, I'm almost done bottle-feeding the sprog. I haveta burp her and get puked on and all of that. If you have any trouble with him, give me a text."

"Good night to you, and to 'the sprog,'" Molly said quietly as she ended the call and put her phone back in her pocket.

Finishing up with the soup, she put a deep bowl in front of Sherlock. "Chicken and rice. I decided not to be pedantic like John; I didn't check the expiry date." The tin hadn't been dented or swollen. It had been dusty but fine.

Antiseptic was good forever practically. Until the plastic bottle it was in started breaking down, really. And the analgesic had only been a year or two out of date. She'd have used them both if Mary hadn't had her very odd emergency kit.

"Expiration dates are suggestions. Not direct orders," Sherlock said with a nod.

"I think so, at least." She put a hand on his shoulder as she passed, giving him a tiny squeeze of support. "I"ll be over here reading."

"I'm not blind you know. I can see where you will be, and what you are doing."

"Don't make me twist your ears again," she said sweetly from his chair near the fireplace.  
He mercifully ate his soup in silence.

zyx

"Mary wants you two to come over for dinner tomorrow night," John said casually as he flipped through the newspaper from his usual chair.

"Sure I'd love-"

"We're extremely busy," Sherlock said, cutting Molly off. "Extremely, extremely. Too many experiments. Can't be done."

Molly rolled her eyes from Sherlock's chair. Her legs were draped over one arm, and a magazine was open in her lap. Next to the chair was a small basket of knitting. She looked over the pattern for a cardigan in the magazine, and wondered if she could make it in yellow. Everybody liked yellow. It was happy and cheerful. "Well, I can go. I don't know about him. I mean, I guess he can skip."

"Sure," John said dramatically. "He can skip. It will only make him the worst godfather in the world."

Molly turned the page again, to see if there was anything else in the patterns that interested her. "It WOULD make him the worst godfather. He hasn't even seen her in a month."

"Is she talking yet?" Sherlock asked rudely.

"She's four months old, Sherlock. No, she's not talking yet."

"Well, then she's just the same as when I saw her last. Let me know when she does something interesting."  
Molly slid her legs around to the front of the chair, got up and crossed to the desk where Sherlock was sitting, skimming through something on the laptop. Without warning she hit him on the head with the rolled up magazine.

John sputtered, but didn't say anything.

"What was THAT for?"

"I'm going to let you figure this one out on your own."

He rubbed the back of his head, as if getting hit with a bit of paper were the worst of his month. "Come on! You know I never figure those things out on my own!"

With a curled up nose, John nodded quickly."He doesn't."

She hit him again. "Pretend it's a case. Talk me through it."

He closed the laptop and spun around, looking from Molly to John. "You like your daughter."

"Pure genius sitting right here, folks," John noted in sarcasm.

"And all parents believe their children are the most magnificent things to grace the universe…And I let you make me her godfather even though neither of us are particularly religious because… perhaps you wanted to keep me involved with you and your family, even though we still run about on cases and I know where your wife's skeletons are buried…" He went quiet for a bit, working it out. "Oh! Oh! I've got it! You're insulted!"

Molly rubbed his head as if the detective were a good dog. "Good job. You've insulted him, his child, and the honorary position in his family that he has given you. I ought to give you biscuits for that one."

Sherlock pulled away from her, annoyed. "Fine. I will come over and eat casserole. OH don't make a face like that, John. We both know what it will be. And play with a baby that will not remember my existence the moment I walk out the door. I do hope she doesn't vomit on me this time."

Molly decided to bounce the baby on her knee while she was full of milk before handing her off to Sherlock. Deep inside her a vindictive person lived.

Sherlock waved a hand. "Well, it will get me away from the sounds of this renovation from hell happening downstairs. I can't believe-Mrs. Hudson's had that thing empty for fifteen years. I miss a few rent payments and she's already moving someone else in."

Molly scrunched her nose. "She did threaten to kick you out before."

"I'll call her bluff."

Without thinking, Molly put her hand on Sherlock's shoulder to get him to stop talking. "'Under a bridge,' I believe her exact words were. It sounded serious."

John looked over the top of his paper. "Sherlock I think you've really done it with Mrs. Hudson this time. Every time I mention your name she makes faces."

"Fine, fine. I will go on with this ridiculous charade of a 'family dinner,' tomorrow night, I will be polite because Molly is a horrible person to me when you all are not here, and I will not have to contemplate my new dull neighbors."

"OUR new dull neighbors," Molly corrected.

"You'll move back to your flat and they'll continue to be my dull neighbors. You can continue living across the corridor from the man with the yellow sweat stains."

"Well, that's a cheerful incentive for me to leave," she said with a feigned smile. Picking up his tea cup, she took it to the kitchen and put it in the sink so Sherlock could wash it later. "You know I'm not vacating this property until you've proven you're not a self-destructive idiot. Acting like a git when your best friend asks you to dinner and to visit with your goddaughter is not a real positive show of faith. I'm just saying."

Sherlock groaned.

John put down the newspaper. "Perfect. I will make sure we have dinner for four. Seven o'clock. No wine, Mary isstill insisting on this breast feeding madness."

"Can she NOT pull them out at the dinner table this time?"

Molly giggled. "I will tell her to, just because it makes you uncomfortable."

"Breasts don't make me uncomfortable." he looked around at both of them. "Small children nearly devouring them whole makes me uncomfortable."

John slapped him on the back twice. "I'll tell her to keep 'the girls' put away this time."

zyx

Oh Mary kept her breasts put away at the dinner table, alright. Mostly because she'd opened the door to them with a small child latched onto her chest. Molly had never met anyone so brazen about breast feeding.

"Sherlock-Molly! Right on time!" She ushered them in. "I'll be done with this in a minute. Maybe fifteen until dinner?"  
Smiling, Molly held up a shopping bag and swung it in front of Sherlock's face, breaking the inappropriate stare. "We brought some sparkling juice. Since, you know." She gestured to Mary's chest.

Sherlock finally stepped through the threshold, the blank stare finally gone from his face. "Yes. How many more months do we have to look forward to this?"

"Well, I was thinking of letting her decide when to stop."

Sherlock looked down his nose at her. "John calls it madness."

John made a killing gesture from the tv room.

Molly pushed Sherlock toward the room John was in. "he didn't mean it like…"

Mary frowned at her husband. "Yes. Well, John doesn't understand maternal bonding opportunities only come around once like this. Then she'll be nine and demanding an iPhone and you'll wish you could pop something into her face and make her shut up.."

Molly wiped a hand over her face. "Well, at least you're not pushy about it. Some of the mums I deal with-I mean know-at the hospital or whatever. They're almost violent adherents to the bottle or the breast or whatever." It was true. Mary was dead-set on her course, but she wasn't proselytizing about it. Of course, Molly had no idea what her internet history looked like.

She headed into the kitchen with Mary, who handed her dishes without a word about it. They set the table in silence. Molly wasn't one for dinner parties. She did them, of course. They were part of the whole socializing and being an adult thing. But she never really felt comfortable. Fortunately there wasn't a whole lot of pressure here. The hostess had breast milk stains coming through her shirt from too-full breasts and, well, Sherlock was there. She felt absolutely no pressure to 'perform' in any sort of way.

Once the table was set, Molly sat at the table. "He's washing his own clothes now," she whispered to Mary. "I only let him send his suits out to dry clean. You know he was sending his pants out too because he couldn't be arsed to do a load of underwear and socks?"

Mary grinned. "He is easily the most ridiculous human being I've ever met. Good news on the renovation. Kitchen is almost done. As soon as that is finished, it's really just flooring and painting in the other rooms. Well, and the bathroom. But how long can a bathroom really take?"

"I have no idea how long a bathroom takes." Molly smiled cheerfully but kind of felt her heart wilt. How long indeed?

It wasn't that she hated spending time with Sherlock. But she had her own place, and her own life, and she'd have to get back to real life soon. All of this… playing house would eventually end. Why drag it out?

"All the fixtures were from the 1950s. Can you imagine? I like retro, but the bathroom was going a little too far. Two separate taps for hot and cold water. Even I have my limits."

Molly's flat had substandard plumbing. The toilet was dodgy. But she had separate taps. Suddenly she felt a bit jealous of Mary's redone sink. "Why's the top flat so nice, then? I mean-it's a bit hodgepodge. But the bathroom's nice. No complaints about the upstairs bedroom. Well, other than the weird wind howling sound when it gets cold."

Those were the nights she went down on the couch with a blanket, listening to Sherlock putter until she fell asleep from the noise. "Actually-I have no idea how John put up with the howling sound."

"Love, he lived with Sherlock. What's a howling sound, comparatively?"

Molly thought about it. "No. No. The howling sound is a bit awful." She giggled. "What do you think they're talking about?" They were going at it in low tones.

Mary waved a hand in their direction. "Boy things. They think they're being deep and mysterious. One of them is probably trying to drag the other off on a case just to get out of cleaning up after dinner."

"Hmm." Molly shrugged. It was probably true. "He's about due for some dashing off madness. I just leave him to it. He can ask me about pathology things. That's all. I followed him around once. Not for me."

Buttoning everything back up, Mary put the baby on her shoulder and rubbed until a little burp came out. "That's a good girl. Now we're going to have a nice dinner with your Uncle Sherlock and Auntie Molly, and you are going to take another nap, aren't you?"

The baby made a face and a few seconds later, there was a distinct change in the air quality.  
Mary just laughed. "John, love. I need to pull dinner out of the oven. Can you change the Little Lady?"

John appeared in the doorway, looking like he was about to complain, but then thought better of it. "Who needs a nappy change?" The baby grunted. "Oh god. I need to get her upstairs before we need to hose her down." He rushed off, feet flying up the steps.

"The sheer amount of biohazard involved does not exactly advocate for motherhood to me," Molly pointed out, her face scrunched up in a bit of horror. "And I sort stomach contents for a living." Among other things. Everybody had their threshold.

Mary looked at the timer on the wall as it counted down to under a minute, then grabbed two large pot holders. "Yeah, that was one part of motherhood I wasn't prepared for. I knew it was coming. But I wasn't READY for the constant onslaught of things coming out of both ends." She put the foil-covered pan on the counter, a wooden board between the counter surface and the hot metal. "Still, it's fabulous. More than I ever wanted in life." Wistfully, she pulled the foil off the food, revealing still-bubbling lasagna. "But I've had a lot of unexpected good things happen. John. Sherlock. Sherlock's done so much for us… I know he's part Scrooge, part great white shark. But he has a soft squishy middle."

Sitting back down at the table, Mary let the food cool. "It's not for everyone. But our little family is good. Weird. But good. There're worse things in the world. I've lived them. Having a baby lose lunch on you in the queue at the bank...nahh. Minor, comparatively. Still-good luck getting baby sick out of silk. Don't know what I was thinking."

Yeah, thought Molly, Mary had her reasons for enjoying motherhood. Not like some of those people who felt like they had to, and no matter how miserable they really were, they went on and on about how wonderful it was. She'd been through things and now she had a nice quiet life. There were worse things.

Molly's life had always been quiet. Even during her medical training. Other than becoming friends with Sherlock Holmes, nothing really happened to her. Well, other than her current strange living situation. "Toby sleeps with Sherlock now. I think my own cat's given me up," she said suddenly, knowing it was nothing like having a baby or a family.

Mary laughed so hard. "That's brilliant. That's the best thing I've heard in ages. And Sherlock never send him on his way. Does he use the cat as a substitute for the skull when you're out of the house?"

"I have absolutely no idea."

Two sets of feet came clomping down the steps like horseshoes on cobblestone. "Mary! Gotta go!"

When they got to the kitchen threshold, Sherlock snatched the baby (now in a different onesie) from John and deposited the child into Molly's unwilling arms. "Lestrade called. Double decapitation!" Sherlock looked happier than she'd seen him in weeks. "Have fun, don't wait up, whatever it is people say…John! Gun!"

Molly stared down at the baby, completely unprepared for this. "Don't get impaled on any fences!" she called after Sherlock, since it seemed the thing to do.

John seemed to be waiting for permission.

"Go, go," Mary waved them on with a oven glove and a laugh. "Before he acts cheerful in front of the press again. We'll save you some food."

The door slammed and they were off.


	4. Chapter 4

Sherlock was researching blade types. He had been for over an hour. John had skimmed through a bunch of old files, looking for any cases with similar details, but his eyes were burning. He picked up the digital kitty clock off of his old reading table and looked at the time. "So how's the whole Molly-as-flatmate" thing going?"

"Mmm," Sherlock muttered, still flipping through a hundred year old book on blade arts. "Oh Molly? It's fine. She's fine." He went back to reading. "It might be a combination between two blades. But then we're looking for a modern blacksmith who modified an old blade…"

It was quiet while Sherlock sketched some things in his notebook. John let Sherlock have it for a bit, until the detective tossed the pencil away. "No, there's no strength in the curve of the metal if you do it that way. It can't be both, can it?" His fingers tapped on the desktop while he tried to find a new approach. "We may need to do some… practicum."

John winced. "Is this going to involve getting watermelon all over the place again?"

"We're going to need at least twelve. You'd better get off to the shops."

Groaning, John sat further back in his old chair. "Sherlock-how do you acquire food when I am not here to do the shopping?"

"Amazon," he said said simply. "You can even order milk on the internet. But not same-day. We need watermelon now. Or any melon really. Something with the vague density of a human skull. And tea, I think Molly and I finished the last of it at about two in the morning. There wasn't any this morning. That I know of."

"Groceries deliver."

"You have to talk to human beings. Amazon drops at the door and runs."

"So you haven't forced Molly out into the cold or the night to get you tea."

"No, she'd have killed me."

John squinted at the man. "I threatened to shoot you, and you wouldn't stop harassing me to go out for things."

"I know. And you're wasting time now."

"So Molly is… different. She gets more…" respect? John didn't know the word for it. Human decency shown her way, that was for sure. He and Sherlock would have rows about who was going for what, and when. And while John won the late-night ones, Sherlock had never, in fact, gone for milk or bread or anything else they'd ever been out of. "Have you ever been to the shops?"

Sherlock put the book down gently. "Once. When I was at uni. It was horrible."

John rubbed his forehead. "Right. Well, I will call someone and have melons of some sort delivered. I'm not walking down the street with twelve melons in sacks.

"Oh, and old newspapers. Molly will be angry about the carpets again."

"So she's…domesticating you?"

Sherlock made a face. "That's what you and Mary wanted, wasn't it? And she'll go away faster if I comply."

Waving his hands in front of his face, John sat up straight. "MARY wanted it. I was also just a pawn in her evil scheme. And do you really want the cat to go away?" He looked down at the cat in Sherlock's lap.

"Nonsense, John. She'd never go away and leave Toby. I shall have to relinquish control of the cat when she leaves as well."

"That isn't even what I-never mind." He set about finding someone who could deliver a lot of fruit same-day. It required far more phone calls than he'd ever see Sherlock make in one sitting, which was why he'd probably been given the task.

Sherlock went into the bedroom and came out with a wicked assortment of knives. "ETA on melons?"

John rubbed his forehead. "An hour or so-apparently ungodly amounts of money can make things happen." How can there be one knife mark, but it looks like two different blades? You know, maybe we should see if they can call Molly in for the post mortem."

Sherlock shook his head. "No. Let her make evil little plans with Mary. Next they'll have me jumping through hoops to prove I am able to live on my own."

"Sherlock, you didn't pay your phone bill for three months."

"I've been busy."

"Whatever. So have I. In case you haven't noticed I have a wife, a small child, an actual job, and I run off after you so I can blog about your exploits and shoot things. I still have phone service. And Mrs. Hudson is happier with her living here. Says you're less...destructive."

Flopping into his own chair, Sherlock sighed and pulled two knitting needles, half a jumper and a ball of wool out from behind him and tossed them on the floor. "Yes, yes. I'm being very reasonable with my experiments and I am clean. Ok? I am completely clean and off drugs. I do not need a babysitter." He pushed the knitting project away from him with his foot. "I told her that would look terrible in yellow. Puke yellow."

John smirked. "You'd know about yellow vomit, wouldn't you?"

"Who put shots in my beer? Alright. Now that THAT discussion is over with." His lip curled at the knitting project on the floor. "Well. Now we know where those jumpers of hers come from. Maybe I should suggest to her that you would like some."

"I will kill you."

"That John Watson. All promises."

They both giggled.

"Have you used the Super Emergency Fancy Tea That No One Wants To Bother With?"

Sherlock made a face. The tin had been sitting in the back of a cupboard for at least four years. "No. I don't even know what to do with it. It smells like apricots."

"It's orange tea. We can suffer with it." That's why it had been there so long: Neither of them could be arsed to deal with something that wasn't in a bag and wasn't going to brew in less than a minute.

After finding something for the loose leaves, John filled up the new kettle. He liked it. Stainless steel done up in red. It was kind of the sexy car of tea kettles. "Did Molly pick this out?" he called into the living room.

"What? The kettle? No. Amazon."

Waiting for the water to heat, he tried not to laugh. "Seriously, do you even leave the flat any more?"

"Not if I can help it!"

"Molly must be a fucking saint," he muttered to himself.

"I heard that!" Sherlock called from the sitting room. A second later, he was in the kitchen doorway. "You act like Molly is entirely without flaws. Exhibit A: that jumper. Exhibit B: the cat clock."

John put down the mug he was checking for cleanliness. "It's not a character flaw to have tastes you don't like."

"Well, she's taken over my chair. And I have to sit in yours. I don't like your chair, John. And she twists my ear. MY EAR if I don't do what she wants."

"Yeah," John deadpanned. "It sounds like a horror story, living with her."

"I'm glad you agree-oh wait. That was sarcasm."

The kettle clicked off and John pulled it off the base. "Yup." He poured hot water into one of the mugs, using the lone steeper to do the first cup. It said five minutes on the tin. Three was probably about all he had the patience for. "I think you don't mind her here. Maybe even like it."

"When she moves out, I'll get a cat."

Sometimes, John wondered if Sherlock actually worked at missing the point, or if it was a skill that came naturally to him.

zyx

"Oh Sherlock, don't be such a wimp about it. It's a bit of baby poo," Mary told him.

Nose wrinkled, he turned away from her, entirely unwilling to subject himself to the experience. Again. "I can't believe you took that poop-catcher off in my flat."

"She needed to be changed. And I thought you would like to pretend to participate in your goddaughter's life." Mary had to do an epic cleanup that involved changing into a new adorable dress-with-leggings outfit. This time green with a frog on it. Mary may have been addicted to buying baby clothes.

She looked at the folded up nappy on the changing blanket, though. "Still, you may want to put that in a biohazard bin. Just to be safe." There was a point where it wasn't adorable any more, and it was just plain toxic.

"Why would I have a biohazard-" He shut up as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

"You don't have a biohazard bin? Why am I not surprised. Your whole flat is a biohazard."

Sherlock sniffed indignantly. "Not since my babysitter moved in here."

Picking up the baby, she glared at Sherlock. "Oh come on. You're not going to try that old tired routine on me, are you?"

He picked up his head in pride and certainty. "The sooner she leaves, the better. I'm getting a cat."

Mary glanced around the flat, then got up, baby in tow and made a critical once-over of the place. "Let's see. Three of her personal mugs, from her flat, are in the sink. The kitty clock has morphed into the kitty clock, a Hello Kitty blanket… on the back of YOUR chair, mind you, her knitting next to your chair, a green and purple pillow that I know is not your type on the sofa, and the bull skull now has light-catching crystals hanging off the horns. You LIKE it."

She held the baby out to him. When he didn't take her, she pushed the cooing five month old at the detective until he had no choice but to wrap his arms around her.

"And how, exactly, did you come to that conclusion?"

Mary smiled in contentment. "Because you LET her have all that stuff about." Picking up the toxic nappy, she moved past him into the kitchen. At the bin, she actually picked up a layer of refuse and hid the nappy under some old kitchen paper, two apple cores and countless used tea bags. It just seemed better that way.

Sherlock didn't bother her the whole time she was washing her hand, so she considered it a small victory won.

When she came back in, Sherlock was sitting with the baby, who was chewing on one of his lapels. "Make sure she doesn't eat your buttons." That was really her only requirement. The baby did, after all, lick the floor sometimes.

"Yes, Mother. What are you even doing here? Molly won't be home for another hour."

She sat on the arm of his chair. "I wanted to visit with you before Molly and I went out, is that a crime?"

"In some places, yes it is. But...no. I suppose I don't mind having Molly here." He got into it a bit, and bounced the baby once or twice.

"Then you should tell her. You two can make it permanent. Mrs. Hudson would be happy."

His eyes narrowed. "A lot of things make Mrs. Hudson happy. Including brownies made with large amounts of weed."

She whacked his shoulder lightly. "Oh stop. She worries about you. And she told me she wouldn't rent the flat to you originally unless you got a flat-mate. She knows your limits, Sherlock."

"And the rest of you do too? That's what this is about? Poor Sherlock can't be on his own, so let's send him a nursemaid?"

She rolled her eyes. "You need someone to stop you from yourself now and again. And to remind you of the little things. Like not leaving your tea on the toilet. And the rent. And the phone bill. Lord help you if you had to pay utilities. Molly loves you and cares about you, or she wouldn't put up with this perpetual grouchiness that you've put on lately. And I love you and John loves you and we think you're better off with someone here who cares about you. It keeps you from getting weird with the skull."

"No, I can't talk to the skull any more. Toby keeps sitting on it, like it will hatch."

"Not the point, love." She brushed his cheek with her thumb. "If she wants to leave, and you want her to leave, fine. I am just offering my humble opinion."

He sat the baby on his lap while she spent quality time chewing her own fist. "Which happens to coincide with your husband's."

"Do you really, REALLY like being on your own? Come on now. And remember-I can tell when you are lying."

He made a face. "Fine. I like having someone here. Someone who understands my… eccentricities. And Molly is fine with not talking. Not always needing to fill the silence with… nonsense. Oh she tried to at first. But then she started bringing those horrible knitting magazines and it's been much quieter. But it's not like having John here."

Hand still on his cheek, she kissed him chastely on the lips, then used her thumb to rub off a bit of lipstick she'd left there. "Oh don't worry about that. I know you don't like change. But maybe we can put him closer at hand. Especially since you're the only person I know who can stand his horrible thorax jokes." She smiled softly, her eyes crinkling.

He frowned. "What was that for?"

"The kiss?" She shrugged. Sometimes it was the only proper way to express things.

"Saying John would be closer at hand?" Revelation dawned on him. "Ohhh. YOU are moving into the bottom flat."

Mary smirked. "Yeah. We've run out of tire irons. He needs to be where the action is."

"Am I going to be kept awake at all hours of the night and day by a crying baby?"

Mary shrugged. "Maybe. Billie starts teething in about a month. Though it's not like you actually sleep at night anyhow."

"You know, I've walked through there a few times. I think the blue tile in the kitchen is a terrible choice."

She got up and resituated herself in John's old chair again. "You are not the one who has to look at it every day. Nor does John, for that matter. If I want blue tile, I'll have blue tile."

"Though the tub is nice."

Mary crossed her ankles casually in front of her. "Oh don't try to save yourself now. Sherlock-you don't have to be alone. You aren't alone. You've got Molly and Mrs. Hudson, and me and John. If you enjoy having people around in limited doses, just say so. You don't have anything to prove to me or John."

"I wouldn't complain too badly, having you two closer." Though the baby… He wasn't sure how he felt about her. Sometimes protective, others… extremely confused and put off. "Why are you taking her to the pub with you tonight?

"Oh she's not going to the pub. What kind of parent do you take me for? she's staying here with you."

Sherlock's jaw clenched. "You don't trust me to be alone by myself. But you are going to trust me with a tiny human being who is entirely reliant on the goodwill of others."

"It's not that I don't trust you. I just know you do better with someone around. A friendly face."

He squinted at the baby. "And exactly how friendly does her face appear to be to you."

Mary's brown clenched in annoyed disgust. "Sherlock, Billie's a baby. She is incapable of being anything other than friendly. Look at her. She's adorable. And you're her godfather. You'll survive for one night. There's bottles of breast milk in the fridge, and instructions."

Sherlock made a face at the mention of breast milk. "You know, baby formula provides adequate-"

One look from her shut him up. "This is the way we are doing it."

"Yes ma'am." She suspected he'd have saluted if the baby wasn't chewing on his thumb. "Why are you all pushing me around."

"Sherlock, love, we're not pushing you around. We're trying to keep you in circulation. And interested in the world. So you don't self-destruct."

"It was for a case."

"It was so you could get high, and claim it was for a case," she said gently.

He grunted and went silent.

zyx

They came home a bit more than tipsy. Mary wasn't flat out drunk, she did have a child to take care of. And Molly wasn't much of a drinker, really. But they'd gotten to talking, about work and hospitals and doctors and the whole medical machine that managed to drive them crazy daily.

In fact, they hadn't mentioned Project Turn Sherlock Into A Polite Human Being but twice. And even then, only in passing. Once because Mary almost called to check up on her darling babykins, before Molly took the phone out of her hand, and explained that it would seriously be detrimental to their project-Sherlock would automatically assume they didn't trust him-and then he'd get back to whining about needing "babysat" all the time, and who needed a whining Sherlock? Really?

The second time was when Molly mentioned that progress was being made in the area of not leaving piles of paper all over floor; that they had to be on actual surfaces in order to meet her exacting standards of not tripping over them and ruining his 'order' and nearly dying by bashing her head on a table.

But the most of it was just annoyance at forms, families, the NHS, and how everyone had switched to those super-cheap disposable blue pens that didn't seem to write very well and ran out far too fast.

They'd come back buzzed, and full of rage toward blue disposable pens only to both lean on the doorway in one of those heart-swelling moments usually reserved for emotionally manipulative greeting cards.

Sherlock was lying on the sofa, ankles crossed and a tiny round figure curled up on his chest.

"Yeah," Molly whispered as she put her purse down on Sherlock's chair. "I don't think you had anything to worry about at all," she said with a contented smile. "Look at that. Shell like a clam, and a fluffy cream filling."

Both of them giggled at an analogy that made little to no sense at all.

"Do we wake them?" Mary asked. "Should I put her to bed?" Of course, she'd wake up as soon as Mary picked her up, but she just couldn't leave the baby there forever, could she?


	5. Chapter 5

When Sherlock came storming in, Molly was asleep on the sofa. He'd wanted someone to brag about his latest accomplishment with, but Molly was dead asleep, face-down on the sofa with Toby sleeping on the small of her back. He looked at the time. Ten. Shouldn't she have been at work?

Sherlock looked at the day on his phone. It was Tuesday. Molly worked on Tuesdays. At ten in the morning, in fact. He knew this now, after she'd been angry at him half a dozen times about not remembering her work schedule considering it was Monday to Friday, 7 am until 3 pm. This month. But he wondered how he could possibly be expected to remember a schedule that changed every three to four weeks.

What did people do in these circumstances? Let her sleep? It wasn't his job. He wasn't worried about it. And she was already late. Waking her now wouldn't fix that.

He had a 'John process' that ran in the back of his brain whenever he could spare the room. It filtered his behavior and told him if things were not good. He had developed another one recently. It told him if what he was doing would make Molly angry with him.

She'd probably be angry if he didn't at least wake her for work.

Bending over, he put his hand on her shoulder with as little pressure as possible. "Molly. Molly-aren't you supposed to be at work?"

Her head turned to his side, hair still covering her face. "No."

Well, if she wasn't going to keep a schedule, he could hardly be expected to remember it.

"Well, I'll leave you to it, then."

"Mmm…" her voice sounded scratchy. She pushed her hair out of her face, and he saw how red her cheeks were. "Called off."

Ahh. Yes. Illness. "You look awful. Just so you know."

In response, Molly turned her head with a groan and put it straight into the green pillow. "Dying. Don't care," she mumbled into the pillow.

Something about that made him chuckle. "Alright. You can go back to dying now. I'll leave you alone."

He flopped into John's chair instinctively, crossed one leg over the other and thought about it. Well, there'd be no banging around the flat. Or proudly explaining last night's triumph. That was anticlimactic.

About an hour later, he set a cup of tea on the coffee table and gently shook Molly's shoulder. "Hey. I have something for you."

"Umf," she grumbled, but turned her head and pushed her slightly-damp hair aside. "Hmm?"

"Tea. Honey. Lemon. Plain toast. Those things you're supposed to have when you're sick." He might have Googled it.

Molly turned onto her side, knocking Toby between her and the tall back of the couch. Inching up, she rested her head on the arm of the chair. "How long've I been asleep?"

Sherlock handed her the tea. "It's eleven now. Depends on when you came downstairs." She was completely dressed, jumper, shoes and all. She'd obviously intended to go in, then had not made it that far.

With hands that barely noticeably shook, she took the cup and took the smallest sip. "You might not want to get close. Flu."

"Your toothbrush sits dangerously close to my toothbrush, so I think that ship has sailed. But I'll try." He handed her a few paracetamol to reduce the fever. "I don't think we have proper flu medicine. John keeps throwing out expired things." He rolled his eyes. They were more suggestions than rules, expiry dates. Really. "But I'll get you something."

She rattled off a few things that were good, in her medical opinion. He committed them to memory and realized only one could be purchased at the corner shop. He was going to have to go to a real place. Like a place with aisles and things. Chemist shop, grocery, something.

How much did he like Molly? It was shopping in places with aisles and lights and things. Shopping was created by the devil.

He looked back at the pathetic half-asleep form on the sofa. He liked Molly enough to go shopping.

zyx

The lights were too bright. Nearly blindingly so. Everything was so damned well-lit it blurred together in his vision. He looked at the place, spread out, with high ceilings and those damned icy cold lights, and pinched his eyes shut, grabbing the bridge of his nose. People did shopping every day. He could do it too. Maybe.

God, everything looked the same. "Can I help you?" a cheerful clerk in a smock asked.

"Flu...stuff." Smooth, Sherlock. Smooth.

However, at this point, if it got him out faster, he didn't care.

"Aisle twelve. At the end."

Blinking slowly, Sherlock took the unbearably long walk toward aisle twelve. This place had more than twelve rows. A chemist. Had more than twelve rows. Fucking Boots. This was the very definition of hell on earth.

By the time he left, he had one bag full of more flu and cold medicine than he could use in three years of colds, and another full of things he knew were not at all medicinal. Chocolate. Salt and vinegar crisps. Biscuits. Things in tubes.

Seven different types of Haribo and Basset products and six bottles of Coca Cola.

He trudged back to the flat, entirely miserable from the experience. There was a reason he didn't do the shopping. It was hellish. And he suffered perpetually from panic purchasing.

By the time he got to the front door, he just wanted to give up on life. Seventeen steps was far too many steps.  
"Everything alright, love?"

His attention snapped to Mrs. Hudson. How long had she been standing there? "Yeah. Sure. We have too many steps."

"You look a little flushed. Why don't you go on up and I'll bring you some tea?"

"Yeah." Except there was a huge problem. Seventeen of them, in fact. With a sigh of resignation that he wasn't going to get out of it, he climbed them, breathing harder than he ought to have been. When he got to the top,something disgusting had settled in the top of his lungs. Clearing his throat, something dislodged and he grimaced. Great.

Oh well. At least he had enough medicine to get through the apocalypse.

"I return triumphant," he said, hoisting the bags just a bit.

"Did you bring the whole shop home?" Molly asked. She was curled up on the end of the sofa, her knees to her chest as she worked on another cup of tea.

"I may have panicked."

She held out a hand. "Well, let's see." Taking it, she began digging through. "Thanks. I think we're done up for this sort of thing for a while." Starting off with a liquid medication that'd act fast, she grabbed a few more things. "You probably want some of this too," she said, handing the bottle to him. "I give you about twenty minutes before you're miserable."

"Too late, I'm already miserable." He did the shot of cold medicine she handed him, then sat on the opposite end of the sofa. Putting the other bag between them, he overturned it, dumping everything out. "Need something to eat?"

They both started laughing, which turned into wet hacking.

"Don't make me laugh," she begged, but grabbed one of the drinks to wash the horrible taste from her mouth.

"But… at least we won't have to cook."

zyx

When Mrs Hudson came up with tea, Sherlock and Molly were both asleep, Curled up on their respective ends of the sofa, the pile of packaged goodies still between them. She hadn't taken that long with tea and biscuits, had she?

Sherlock's face was bright red, but he had his coat pulled around him protectively. Molly was in several layers of jumpers, curled up on her side, still clutching the plastic bottle of Coke.

Mrs Hudson set the tray down and shook her head. Sherlock's eyes opened. "Hmm?"

"Look at you. Both of you poor things." She poured him a cup. "It's hot, at least. It'll make you feel better." She took Molly's mug off the arm of the sofa, and refilled it. "Here, love," she said gently, waking the young woman. "A little more tea. Keep you hydrated."

Molly took the mug and gave Mrs. Hudson a small smile. "Thank you."

"Do you want me to call John?"

"It's just flu," Molly told her. "Not much he can do about it."

Mrs. Hudson folded her arms over her chest, biting her cheek. "I'll call him anyway." She wandered back downstairs.  
Molly and Sherlock eyed each other. "Yes, she's always like that," Sherlock supplied.

"Fantastic. Because we need to be getting John-and the baby-sick." She dropped her head back onto the arm of the sofa. "This is so much fun."

"Getting sick was YOUR idea," Sherlock pointed out in all seriousness. "What a terrible idea."  
"Mmm," Molly muttered in agreement.

zyx

Still on opposite ends of the sofa, Sherlock and Molly looked up at John like miserable little children. "I think you know what I'm going to tell you. If you take the disgusting powdered stuff, there's paracetamol in it, so you don't need to worry with tablets, Sherlock, I know you're not going to listen, but don't mix the powder with the liquid. Or take them more than four hours apart. Six preferably. Molly, beat him with a rolled up bit of newspaper if he tries to take more than two meds at the same time…"

"It's ok. I still have the Taser."

Sherlock's head lolled to the side. "I'm cleaaaan John," he moaned hoarsely.

"Which is why you're going to actually follow the instructions on the packets. I'm going to see if I can get you some Tamiflu. Till then, don't overdose on over the counter stuff?"

"Fine," he muttered grumpily. Toby crawled out from under the sofa and jumped on him, but just long enough to get onto the back. He curled up in the middle of the leather, apparently not wanting to get too near either of his People.

Before he left, John got them tea one more time, to soothe their scratchy throats. He handed Molly hers and gave her a soft shoulder squeeze. "Feel better soon," he told her quietly.

He grabbed Sherlock's mug and came around the coffee table, putting it into his friend's hand. "Behave."  
Sherlock didn't say anything, he just took the mug and twitched his nose.

Something about that made John smile. "I'll check on you tomorrow. Don't do anything I'll have to make you regret."  
Mary poked her head around the door to the flat. "About done? Mrs. Hudson just gave Billie a biscuit as a teething toy."

John shrugged. "She's going to learn about sweets at some point, Mary."

"I was hoping to put it off until she was four or five." She looked at Sherlock and Molly. "Wow. You two look genuinely awful. Well, stay away from me, then." And she ducked back downstairs.

"She's out of control with motherhood," Sherlock croaked. "A breast-feeding dictator."

"Yeah. If I hear Baby Mozart one more time I may off myself." He gave Sherlock a fond smile. "I mean it, you keep yourself out of trouble for now." He put a hand on Sherlock's shoulder the way he had Molly, but then leaned in and gave Sherlock a half-hug. "I'll pop in tomorrow," he promised again quietly. He hesitated, and his cheek rested on Sherlock's hair for a moment. "Feel better soon," he told Sherlock.

After he broke the contact, he went into the kitchen and washed his hands thoroughly before putting on his coat and heading downstairs to retrieve his wife and child.

Holding the cup to her chest, Molly was smiling at Sherlock.

"What?" He took a gulp of the burning tea. Too much lemon, not enough honey, by his own estimate.  
"He really really loves you, you know."

Sherlock made a face.

"He hugged you even though you have the plague. I got a shoulder squeeze and a cup of tea. You got a hug and a cheek on your head."

"He says I'm his best friend. I'm sure that's some sort of filial love." He had no idea what she was implying.

"That must be it," she said knowingly.

They finished their tea in silence before busting open a packet of gummy bears each, and shoveled them into their mouths by the handful. All rules of normal eating went out the window with intense sickness.

"Did you get the weird ones that look like penguins?" Molly asked when they were each down a bag.

"Nope. Got some All Sorts."

Molly found it in the pile. "When I was a kid, I'd get toothpicks and make little men out of them." She started picking out the ones she wanted.

"Don't leave me with just yellow ones," Sherlock complained, pulling the bag away. "Really? All of the pink ones?"

Molly giggled miserably. "Pink is my favorite flavor."

Sherlock glanced over at his chair with the Hello Kitty blanket thrown over the back. "Oh, believe me. I know." He started on the ones that were just licorice. You had to eat them in order. There was a way to do these things.

"I'll give you ONE pink one." Molly handed it over.

Sherlock held it to his chest. "I shall cherish it always."

"Not for too long. The marzipan breaks up after a while." It sounded like the voice of experience.

"I'll simply have to schlack it then."

They both half-smiled and went back to sniffing and chewing in equal measure.

zyx

When John came back the next morning, Molly and Sherlock were still on the sofa. The television was playing a morning news program softly, but neither of them noticed. Molly's jumper had been shed, and so had Sherlock's coat, but it was being used as a blanket to cover both of them. They were both lying on the sofa, Molly a bit trapped between Sherlock's chest and the back of the sofa. Her head was lying on his curled up arm.

There were food wrappers all around them, and empty Coke bottles, a few over the counter medications they'd used up were strewn about. The Tamilfu he'd sent along was opened on the coffee table, and the nearest waste bin was stuffed full of used tissues.

Yes, they'd both had quite an evening, it seemed, and were entitled to rest.

Mrs Hudson came up the steps behind him. "Oh they've been like that since I tried to bring them tea this morning. I decided to just let them sleep. Looks like they need it. Quite a pair."

"Yeah. I can't tell which one looks more miserable." Sherlock was pulling out slightly ahead with the swollen red nose that was blistered around the edges from coarse tissues. But Molly's long hair was now pulled up into a knotted, frazzled ponytail on top of her head, lop-sided and sweaty, which did put points in the pathetic column for her.

He kicked a few chocolate wrappers out of the way. "Don't suppose you would mind making them something marginally healthy to eat when they wake up? This diet really won't help them at all."

Slowly, Mrs. Hudson bent and picked a few bits of the rubbish up. "Oh it's comfort food, John. Let them have it. And I already have soup simmering downstairs. Why don't you come down with me. I'll make you a sandwich? You can look in on them when they're awake."

Or he could wake them up now. He weighed his options. Incredibly grouchy Sherlock, or sandwich. Amazingly the food won out. "Yeah, you're probably right. I'll be right behind you." he picked up a few more bits of rubbish until Mrs Hudson was gone, then he looked them both over quickly. Still wheezing, obviously, still had a fever, obviously. Nothing that couldn't wait until they both got a bit more sleep, he supposed.

Putting a hand on Molly's forehead, he got a relative and completely non-scientific temperature (oh how Sherlock would balk!), then brushed the errant strands from her face. He also brushed the hair back from Sherlock's forehead, hesitated, and just barely pressed his lips to the other man's forehead. Unscientific temperature check, he promised himself.

He tugged the coat up to their chins a bit more, then grabbed the Hello Kitty blanket on the back of Sherlock's chair (his precious, precious chair!) and tossed it over their legs, which were sticking out of the coat, Sherlock's more than Molly's. He had to admit, they did look kind of adorable like that.

Out of old habit he took a quick picture and sent it off to Lestrade before heading down to Mrs. Hudson's.

zyx

Sherlock woke slowly, everything in his damned body aching. This wasn't the flu. It was the plague. It had to be. He was going to die of the Black Death and no one would care.

As soon as he cracked open his eyes, the terrible pain in his head started, and he groaned. Something shifted in his arms. Someone. He opened his eyes a little further. He and Molly were both tucked into his coat. Her face was red, and she looked about as good as he felt.

She sniffled. "Hi," she muttered, closing her eyes again, putting her head back on his chest.

He tried to move his arm, but he was pinned between her, and the back of the sofa. "Is this weird?" he asked her. He had no means of judging. In most situations it would be considered socially awkward, he supposed. But this wasn't most situations.

"I guess," she said in the middle of a yawn. "We need a second sofa. For next time influenza comes calling."  
He groaned at the joke. "Or we could remember to get flu jabs."

"That's probably more sensible." Her head lolled onto his shoulder. "It's comfortable. I guess… it's only awkward if you want it to be." Oh great, he got to choose as to whether this was awkward and weird or not.

Looking around the room, he couldn't find a single reason to move or get up. "It's not awkward. If you tell anyone I said that, I'll deny it."

"Works for me." She drifted back off to sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

"But it turned out the point of entry was at the base of the skull," Sherlock said sweetly to the baby sitting in his lap. "That's right. Right through the skull! He was killed instantly! But he did have to have a closed-casket funeral…"

Molly wiped a hand over her forehead, leaving a smudge of dirt just above her eyebrow. "This is how you're helping us," she said incredulously. "Scarring a child by telling her stories about murder victims?"

He waved a hand in front of his face. "Apparently John didn't like the way I unpacked his boxes." He looked down at the cooing baby in his lap. "And looking after John's tiny spawn is my contribution to this whole moving process."

"Can you NOT tell her bedtime stories based on autopsy reports?"

He took the baby's hand and shook it judgmentally at Molly. "Your Auntie Molls doesn't want you to have any fun. No fun at all."

Billie laughed.

"And I can talk about anything I wanted in this deep, soothing voice and she doesn't care a jot about what I say," he said in his dark sing-songy tones. "Nor will she remember a lick of it, once I give her an illegal biscuit while her mum isn't looking."

"Mary's trying to keep her off the sugar-"

"Mary gets creepy when it comes to her daughter's dietary and excremental habits. I'm saving the child from a lifetime of food-boredom."

Not bothering to respond, Molly went to the kitchen for a glass of water.

Sherlock bounced the child on his knee. "Your mummy is a helicopter parent. Yes she is. I read all about it on the Internet. Your mummy wants to maximize your full potential by denying you important things like biscuits and chocolates and drinks entirely made of sugar and chemical coloring."

Molly leaned against the door frame for a bit, watching Sherlock. He'd deny it, but he was good with the child. He did the proper 'uncle' thing of attempting to subvert parents' wishes. She did have to smile.

"But look at Uncle Sherlock. No stunted growth. And I'm certainly all I can be. And my mummy thought I was too skinny and shoved cake down my throat at every chance." He thought about it for a second. "Cake makes you smart. It's why Mycroft's so very, very clever. You should take the nearest opportunity to vomit on him."

Glass in hand, she crossed over to the desk, where he was sitting with the baby. "I don't think babies can vomit on command," she said with some amusement, putting a hand on his shoulder to be sure she had his attention. "Try not to scar her too badly, alright?"

"She has no idea what I'm saying," Sherlock promised again. "Not a word."

Molly shook her head. "Talk about something nice. Like break-ins or corporate thefts."

He sighed. "If you insist."

Smiling, she bent and kissed his cheek. "Thank you. I know Mary will be relieved."

"Tell Mary I'm stuffing her child full of biscuits. Just for fun."

"I'll tell John you're making trouble for no reason at all. Now behave until we finish up."

"Yes, dear," he said in disgust before turning back to his little protege with bright eyes. "Let's talk about blood spatter analysis!" he continued with a singy, happy tone. "Do you want to hear about direct or indirect splatter? Let's talk about gushing arteries!"

Molly rolled her eyes and went back downstairs. John would like to know that his plan to keep both Sherlock and the baby out of their hair and out of dangerous things was working.

zyx

Mary was asleep on the leather sofa. Sherlock's leather sofa. He knew it was his leather sofa because he had purchased it. He purchased it because he liked it. He liked it because it was comfortable. Which was probably why Mary was curled up in the middle, snoring.

Snoring. On his sofa. That he liked. How could he use his own furniture if there were knitting needles sticking out of the chair that matched the sofa that he had both purchased and liked, and if there was a woman who did not live in his flat sleeping on said sofa?

He couldn't.

And there was the rub.

Oh but wait. This story got better. Molly was sleeping in his bed. She did that now. When she came home from overnight shifts, and apparently walking up one more flight of stairs was just impossible, she would come into his room, drop her coat on the floor, walk all the way around his bed to the side usually filled with whatever crap Sherlock had managed to accumulate there before falling asleep, dump said crap (even if it was a laptop) on the floor and crawl into his bed.

It didn't even bother her if Sherlock himself was still in Sherlock's bed. Lately, he'd just learned to live with it. It wasn't like he needed both sides for sleeping, anyhow. You could only sleep on one side at a time. If anything, It was… bed efficiency. Except for when Molly was sprawled diagonally across the bed, and he didn't want to move or wake her. Like now. How could such a small woman take up so much space? But then he looked around at the accumulation of pink in his flat and he thought he knew.

This was his life, now.

He liked his furniture. He liked his chair, he liked his sofa and he liked his bed. And no one wanted him to enjoy these things.

He'd tried Molly's bed once. Well, John's old bed. Christ almighty, it was like sleeping on broken, chipped shale-cold, uneven and a bit stabby in places. He hoped to god John had never tried to have sex with actual female human beings in that bed. No wonder he hadn't struck gold with Mary until he'd moved out.

After getting himself some tea, he prepared to fling himself into John's chair-which was now HIS chair due to reasons of knitting needles and the pink Hello Kitty blanket that amused his client to no end-but Toby was curled up in the middle. Sleeping.

"At some point," he muttered to the sleeping cat, "my life went wildly out of control."

He started pulling Molly's things out from between the cushions, but gave up when he found a plastic needle. He didn't even know what a blue plastic needle was for and he didn't WANT to know. And half a packet of crisps.

His life had probably gone tits up the moment he'd asked 'Afghanistan or Iraq?' All those years ago.

Grabbing his laptop off the desk, he looked it over, then put it back, picking up Molly's instead. Molly had that nice x-ray software on it. He liked looking in the metal projectiles folder.

Clomping down the steps, he sped past Mrs. Hudson's door. Molly had reminded him yesterday about the rent, and he'd paid it, but Mrs. Hudson now had this infernal need to thank him every month, and remind him of how much better he was doing. As if positive reinforcement would somehow help. Mostly it was Molly thrusting the cheque book and a pen in front of him while he was doing something else that got him to pay the rent every month. She'd given up on the mobile bill and just did that herself now. They were about compromises, after all.

The door to the C flat was unlocked. It was an appalling lack of home security on John's part, but he couldn't say much. He had two front doors in his flat and never locked either, unless Mycroft was coming to call.

Downstairs, John was asleep on the sofa, so that was no dice as far as a place to relax went. But it didn't matter much, because he knew why Mary was hiding upstairs in his flat. The baby was sitting on the ceramic tile floor (Mary's redecorating at work) slamming a metal measuring cup against the tile over and over while shouting rapidly in baby-speak about God only knew what.

John had learned to sleep in a war zone. Sherlock wish he had such skills.

He could take a nap on Mrs. Hudson's sofa. He'd earned it. Well, they all had. Molly had spent all night getting every piece of shrapnel out of their victim, he and John had run around like mad people doing the things that mad people did, and Mary had matched the shrapnel to a specific bomb maker. Mrs. Hudson had been employed in watching a sleeping baby while said sleeping baby continued to sleep. Which was probably why the baby was caterwauling now, singing the song of her tiny, slobbering people. Which was why everyone was scattered and Mary was hiding from her own child's face-hole emminations.

This is what he got for being late to the party. This is what he got for being a 'good person' and sticking around to talk to Lestrade after the case. He got shoved out of his own bed by a pathologist, kicked out of his not-chair by a cat, and deposed from his sofa by the wife of his best friend, his best friend was using his own couch, which really only left Mrs. Hudson's or….

No. He wasn't good with a lot of those… social rules things. He basically abused his friendship with John as a meter for how he was doing with them, and when he really ought to shut his mouth and just stop. But there was something decidedly… unstylish about taking a kip in the bed your best friend shared with his wife.

But he was very tired. And Mrs. Hudson would overly praise him.

He looked from John to the noisy, noisy baby.

The kitchen was just off the sitting room. The bedroom was in the back of the flat. John would know if she got into trouble and would wake up (old soldier's habits) and if he were lucky, Sherlock wouldn't hear much of John's precious little spawn.

Sighing in defeat, he took himself and Molly's laptop toward John's bedroom.

He just really hoped it didn't smell like sex in there.

zyx

John woke up mid-morning, when Billie STOPPED the banging noise. She was a full-fledged crawler now, and while everything was baby-proofed (they even had ugly bumpers on the coffee table) he knew that a quiet baby was a baby about to get into trouble.

Rubbing a hand over his face, he looked into the kitchen, where she'd been pounding away for god knew how long.

He glanced at the time as he got up. He'd had three hours. That ought to be good. Except Sherlock had dragged him through a water-logged basement for two hours, looking for bombing evidence and his head hurt and he wanted to just be in a coma for a bit. Because it sounded nice.

Walking through the flat, he checked all the usual hiding places. Cupboard where the mixing bowls were kept, the small cupboard under the stairs, that she'd liked so much, they'd taken the door off and turned into a soft, safe play space for her, and under the mop. He had no idea why she liked it under the mop, but it kept her quiet.

Her own room was vacant, and he was about to get worried, until he saw the bedroom door open, and Sherlock lying flat like a corpse on Mary's side of the bed, a tiny child in a pink onsie with dirty knees, asleep on his chest. He smiled and snapped the requisite picture, sending it off to Lestrade. They both had a collected file of photos that proved Sherlock's humanity. Well, not humanity. John knew just how human Sherlock was. But his… fallible side. With a sweet nougatty center.

After that, he slid the keys he'd been sleeping on out of his pocket and quietly put them on the dresser. Checking his phone he got a smiley face back from Greg. He put that on the bedside table, and slid into his own side of the bed. The pillow was so comfortable. The most comfortable thing in the world.

Eyes closing, he started dropping off, but the sprog's hand slipped out of her mouth, and the first squeak of waking up started. He'd definitely jostled the bed getting in. Moving closer to Sherlock, he put his hand on Billie's back, which soothed her immediately.

"Molly… you're creeping again," Sherlock said in a low voice, still asleep.

"I'm the one creeping," John admitted. He had no idea what their arrangement was up in the B flat, but he felt like honesty was the best policy.

"John… you're creeping," he corrected, then went back to sleep, his mouth falling open and tiny snores escaping.

John shook his head, moving just a little closer and taking his pillow with him. He wrapped an arm around the baby and Sherlock. He had no idea what the arrangements were down here, either, but things were shifting. Apparently, it was fine.

He just never wanted to push his luck.

zyx

Molly groaned, glaring evilly at the kettle, as if she could make the water heat faster just from unhappy will-power alone. "I hate everything," she grumbled to herself, pulling her fluffy kitty-laden dressing gown around her.

A second later, she hated life even more, when a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Mary appeared in front of her, flapping her hands in front of her face in silent excitement. "You have to come downstairs," she whispered in glee.

"I'm just making tea. I'll be down when-"

"No. Oh my god. Molly. Right now. It's the cutest thing."

Sighing, Molly grabbed her blanket off the back of the grey chair, and pulled it around her, then tried not to clop too badly down to the bottom flat. They walked through the rooms to the back, where the bigger bedroom was. Mrs. Hudson was standing over the bed, one hand tucked into the other elbow, and that hand resting on her cheek. She was looking down at the figures in the bed as if they were some abstract art piece that she couldn't decide if she liked or not.

Molly did smile, though. They looked very comfortable and sweet. Sherlock on his back, the baby on his chest, and John curled up next to them, an arm wrapped protectively around his best friend and child. "Did someone take pictures?" she whispered, thinking of how her phone was upstairs on the charger in Sherlock's room.

"Loads," Mary promised. "With the HD Nikon too." She waved her hands in front of her again in excitement. "Blackmail material… FOREVER."

Sherlock opened an eye. "I can hear you, you know. I will destroy every piece of electronic equipment you own."

"Oh Sherlock, don't be like that," Molly begged. "It's sweet, and adorable. You all looked so peaceful together."

His nose wrinkled. "At least he admits when he's creeping."

"I don't know I'm creeping in your direction. I'm asleep, remember?"

"So you say."

Mrs. Hudson pointed at them absently. "Now, I'm not one to judge.."

"But you're about to anyway," Sherlock muttered dryly.

"Oh, you know what, it's not any of my business."

"Exactly."

"You should just be better to John, is all."

Sherlock squinted, making a face at her.

She walked to the door, her arms still folded across her chest. "Anyhow, my television show is on soon. I suppose if Mary doesn't mind, I don't mind." Shaking her head, Mrs. Hudson left.

Molly and Mary shrugged at each other. "I have no idea what she thinks goes on here," Mary said. "But let's not break any of her illusions. It makes us cooler and more mysterious."

Molly giggled. "I really need to go upstairs to my tea, before I have to reheat the water. Sherlock, be good."

"Aren't I always?"

"No," she returned quickly. "But then, if you were, I'd love you less." She kissed his forehead and retreated from the bedroom to her forgotten tea.

Which left Mary staring down at her sleeping husband and child, and quite awake Sherlock. "It's alright to be a bit of a softy behind closed doors, you know. It won't ruin your reputation."

"If you keep taking all those blasted pictures, it will."

She didn't respond to the bait. She just walked around the bed, and slid under the blankets behind her husband, arm going around the whole lot of them. "Mmm. This is nice. After a hard night's work of saving the world. A nice warm bed. Both of my boys, and my little girl."

"Get Molly down here, and perhaps we can have a family cuddle," Sherlock said smartly.

She pinched the skin on his stomach, just below where the baby's feet dangled. "Don't give me ideas."

zyx

John took two boxes off of his chair and put them on the floor. Flopping down into the chair, he put his feet on the smaller of the two boxes, and started reading the news on his phone. Eventually Molly and Sherlock would sort it out, and they would tell him if he was helping them move these things upstairs, or unpacking them down here. Personally, he didn't care. But the argument had been going on since they packed Molly's flat up the night before.

Living with Sherlock was cheaper, less boring and more spacious, and Sherlock had decided ages ago that he'd liked having the company again, and that Toby was much more responsive to his ramblings than the skull, so when her lease was up, it was basically understood by all involved that she'd be moving in to 221B permanently.

So John and Mary had taken a few days off. Mary had Molly's things packed in one afternoon and evening, and in such a way it all fit into one small truck that was more of an oversized van. Granted Molly had parted with a lot. There'd been the requisite trip to the charity shop since she didn't need most of her kitchenware any more, or loads of other things that they'd have double of soon.

Though she'd made Sherlock get rid of all the cloths and mitts and potholders in the kitchen. She was bringing her own. John thought it was an improvement-granted it was pink cats. But there were no burn marks on everything any more. She kept her own knitting chair, but most of the furniture had gone as well. Mary had it sorted so quickly it took his breath away, and there'd been one trip to the charity shop, and then the rest of it had fit neatly into the truck.

They had unpacked the truck this morning, and now they were staring at boxes upon boxes, and an oversized bread maker.

"Sherlock I just don't think-"

"Then we could have the whole upstairs for storage. And I could get the stab wound molds out again."

"You are not getting out your weird dental mold exotic dildo collection out ever again. Not even for a case."

Because neither of them could come to a decision about whether Molly was staying in Sherlock's bedroom or not.

"They're stab wounds!" he pleaded.

"That's not at all what they look like. And if the Hello Kitty vibrator got vetoed from even existing in the house, then I get to vito the dental plaster molds. The end."

John looked up at the ceiling and sighed in satisfaction. They probably had completely forgotten he was even there. It was weird here. He liked it.

"Why do you think everything's phallic?" Sherlock demanded.

"Because I haven't had a proper shag in ages. And if you joke about it one more time, I will set you on fire."

John stood up with that. There was a certain… evilness in Molly that he'd learned about over the last half year or so. "You can't set Sherlock on fire. Sherlock-if she only wants to sleep in your bed but not have her stuff in your room then that's her choice. And the collection is extremely phallic and will probably scar my daughter if she stumbled upon it, so it stays safely hidden away in the cupboard. Forever." He ran a hand through his hair. "Look, we'll get rid of my old bed. It's a piece of shite anyways. And we'll put hers up there. For guests or for when she wants to punch you in the face, and we'll put her clothes and things up there, because all you do is bitch and moan about her cutsey knickknacks and things. THERE. Sorted."

Molly wrinkled her nose. "You complain about my things?"

He held his hands up in defense. "Not when you're around!" as if that somehow made it better.

John wiped a hand over his eyes. He was the one who had opened that particular can of worms.

"Oh that's so much better!" She glared at him with a look that really could set him on fire.

"Like you don't complain about me on your pub nights with Mary. 'Sherlock stays up too late, Sherlock won't take cases first thing in the morning, Sherlock told that client he had a hair piece."

"Are you SPYING on my girls' nights?"

Clenching his teeth John sent an SOS text to Mary. If this 'discussion' wasn't salvaged by someone with better sense than him soon, they'd be moving Molly's things back into her old flat.

"What am I supposed to do? I'm here all alone with Toby, and you're off having fun with… people. I'm just making sure you're not being kidnapped or mugged or drugged or kidnapped. Or kidnapped."

Molly drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, her cheeks puffing from the effort. Reaching down for the magazine sticking out of the grey chair, she rolled it up and started hitting Sherlock with it. "You idiot. You stupid, stupid man. Idiot-man. Stupid, idiot, man!"

Oh god, he hoped Mary got up here soon. Cos it looked like Sherlock had just gotten a paper cut just under his eye.

"Just say you care about me! Don't stalk me! That's not even-Oh my god!"

Sherlock held up his hands in self-defense, but by then, Molly had stopped smacking him. "I don't want you to get kidnapped?" He reiterated defensively. "Cos-I would have trouble finding another flatmate? Two in a lifetime is statistically improbable? Much less three?"

She sighed. "Sherlock, just say it."

But he didn't. Instead, he took her face both of her hands and kissed her, deeply.

Mary stopped short behind John, gasping. He took her hand. They were watching magic happen.

Finally, their lips parted, and he wrapped his arms around held each other tightly, frozen together. He looked over Molly's head, to John and Mary. "This never happened. If you tell anyone, I will kill you."

But then he did another very un-Sherlock-like thing and kissed Molly again.

Mary squeezed John's hand. "They'll be buying joint furniture soon," she whispered hopefully.


	7. Chapter 7

Yes, there was furniture purchased, as Mary predicted. They replaced the doubles desk with a wall-encapsulating monstrosity with pigeon holes for all of Sherlock's damned papers from Ikea. That's how Mary knew it was serious. You only went to Ikea when it meant something. Especially when Sherlock could have gotten real furniture from any other place in the entire world. But he'd let Molly drag him to Ikea. There'd been swearing, of course. But they'd gotten through it.

Then there'd been the swearing involved in the putting together of the Desk from Hell. Molly started drinking sooner than expected and Sherlock had come down to the Watsons' flat yelling about how no one could interpret the instructions cos they were just DRAWINGS and that he had advanced degrees in chemistry but had failed to get another in rocket science and therefore couldn't put the desk together.

Mary had ripped the stupid little allan wrench from Sherlock's hands, and the instructions, informing him that it was now HIS job to amuse Billie, then marched upstairs and finished the desk in record time. She didn't want Sherlock to know it had taken so little time, so she and Molly had polished off the rest of the wine bottle. Never let them know how long it took to do things. Then you'd stop looking like a miracle worker.

It was dry wine, which she didn't like, but she had a lot of drinking to make up for. She was back on the sauce since she'd stopped breast feeding the first time the baby nearly bit her nipple off and made her bleed.

Mary leaned forward with her glass. "How did you even get him into Ikea?"

Molly giggled. "He wore sunglasses and refused to even glance at anything that wasn't a desk unit."

"Not even the little art model men?"

"Not even the art model men." she shook her head no.

Mary took another sip. Couldn't go wrong with a semi-sweet, she thought the dry… a whole other story.. "Tough customer."

"He hates shops. They drive him mad."

"Huh." Learning something new every day.

"Too much to look at. He has no idea where to start and comes back with either everything, or absolutely nothing." She poured herself a bit more, even though her glass was still a quarter full. "I tried to make him come with me once and it ended badly. Really badly."

"So his brain can work on all those enormous problems because he can see every detail, but the same goes true for the bread aisle."

Molly nodded. "He almost went mad over fourteen brands of the same type of cheese. I think it's better if I do the shopping. But I also told him if he didn't help pick the desk, he had no business complaining. And he likes to complain, so he wanted to make it his business."

Mary laughed like someone who hadn't had a drink in over a year. "Bless his little heart," she teased.

"Oh, I know."

"And you too. Lord, what you put up with. Enough to drive someone to drink."

Molly giggled. "Shh. This is my second bottle since we got the flat packs delivered."

"For shame."

"This coming from a woman with energy drinks hidden under the bed."

"Point taken. Now then. Christmas." Mary slapped Molly's leg.

Molly's drink sloshed in her glass. "Oh god. I can't think that far ahead."

"Oh nothing too drastic. Your flat, or ours?"

Molly thought about it. "John and Sherlock are more likely to run off in your flat. But Sherlock's more likely to act like a horrible Christmas ogre up here. Mrs. Hudson's?"

ZYX

Molly stared at the slide under her microscope. How sad for Ella Jacobs. The tumor wasn't malignant, but the benign tumor had grown too large. If only she'd sought medical attention sooner.

"So I heard you're living with HIM."

Molly's head snapped up. She almost hit her eye on the eye piece. "Him?"

Ed, the night attendant was looking at her like she should know exactly who.

"Sherlock? Yeah. Roommates. It's a really nice flat." She went back to her slide, but Ed didn't go away. "He likes my cat." That was about all she could think to say about it. Things were always a bit odd here at work. They didn't know about the faked autopsy or her part in the faked death. They didn't know that she sometimes… liberated parts from the dissection rooms of the school for him. Her relationship with Sherlock was just too unconventional to explain to a near-stranger.

"It's a bit… odd."

Molly looked up again. "Never you mind. I have my reasons." She realized how mean that had sounded. "I mean-Ed, look. It's fine. He's a fine roommate, we're friends. We've been friends for a long time. And I don't have anything mysterious or creepy to report. He's not keeping corpses in the fridge and he doesn't drink blood. He's just… a flatmate." Not really. Sort of. Mostly not.

It wasn't any of Ed's business.

"Ok, ok. Fine."

"If anything interesting happens, I'll be sure to report."

"No you won't."

A small smile spread on her lips. "You're right. I won't. A girl has to have secrets." Like Mary said, it made people sound cooler and more mysterious.

This wasn't the first comment or attempted discussion of the matter that she had faced at work. She brushed them off with as little detail as possible usually.

Maybe that's who she was now. The consulting detective's weird flatmate. She didn't mind.

ZYX

Sherlock got Molly a tasteful pair of diamond earrings for Christmas. They said something… without saying something. Or too much of anything. But with the prospect of potentially saying something at a future date during which something else would be said and the earrings would be looked back upon as a thing that had said a thing.

Mostly he'd done a tremendous amount of research on the Internet on appropriate Christmas presents. Unfortunately there was not a website that dealt with what to get the person with whom you were sharing a bed yet weren't having sex with. Because they just weren't to that part of the relationship yet? It was complicated. And anyway, the Internet wasn't helpful. He'd ended up asking John.

They'd lied and said they were on a case, and ended up at a jeweler together. John had explained that it was very difficult to go wrong with jewelry, as long as one did not overdo it, and get it for every occasion. Sherlock attempted to narrow down the number of occasions for which gifts were given, and the statistical appropriateness of jewelry as a gift, but gave up after he realized that several holidays overlapped in the rotation he was preparing.

John got Mary a nice black pearl necklace, and Sherlock had begun looking at the shiny things in the upper cases. They were all shiny. The only way he could keep his damned head wrapped around it was to look at the purchase as a puzzle of deduction-what would be the right gift for his non-sex-having bed-companion.

"Earrings or tennis bracelets, Sherlock," John said by way of guidance. "Or a necklace, I guess. but then it'll look like you copied me. You wanna look like you thought of this on your own."

Sherlock tilted his head back and forth, looking at a pair of square-cut diamond earrings. "They're going to know I copied because I am going to come home with something that isn't completely rubbish. What about these? They're...square."

John shrugged. "Sounds like an accurate summation of your relationship. Even on all four sides?"

"And shiny."

"And shiny."

They both fell into helpless giggles leaning over the counter. The man who was helping them was not amused.

"So what do I get for Mary?" Sherlock asked.

Apparently he had to get things for people now. He was sending Mycroft a specialty cake. Fourteen different types of chocolate. But that was more about the passive-aggressive nature of their relationship than his now-Father Christmas-like qualities.

"A jumper with a snowman on it." He shrugged. "I found a giant ceramic kitten for Molly. I think I'm good."

"Oh great. Another cat-themed piece of paraphernalia. You don't even want to know what clients think when they come into the flat. They ask if I have a teenage daughter."

John had an evil grin on his face while he was looking at necklaces. "She can keep it on your dresser. It can stare at you and haunt you in your sleep."

"Wonderful. And I can't get your wife jewelry because that sends some bad message or something."

"I'm not telling you what to do on that front, Sherlock. I think she'd be fine with something overly cute, which is where the motherhood thing seems to be going lately." John chose the dark box and had it wrapped. He paid and signed warranty paperwork while Sherlock was deliberating over the only item he had looked at with any serious sort of intent since they'd gotten in there.

Finally John just told the man that Sherlock would take the square-cut earrings. While Sherlock was lost in his daze, John took the wallet out of Sherlock's breast coat pocket, handed over the man's credit card and all but signed for it too.

They were half a street away before Sherlock seemed to come back to himself. "I could get her another silencer."

"First of all… no. Second… NO."

"I want to get her something she'll use."

"A jumper is fine, Sherlock. Don't over-kill it like you did with your goddaughter. I'm not sure all thirty-two Blu-ray volumes of 'Classical Music For Babies' was quite what Mary had in mind when she said 'something educational.'

Sherlock looked down at the black bag in his hand. "So a jumper is good enough."

"A jumper is good enough. A ceramic cat is good enough. It's just Christmas."

Sherlock stopped dead. "Then why are we buying useless jewelry?" he asked loudly. This was so bloody confusing! He liked it better when he was just an arsehole misanthrope who was not expected to remember birthdays or give respectable Christmas gifts.

"Sherlock-I mean-reduce your expectations. Thirty some-odd DVDs is a little excessive. A stuffed animal that sang the alphabet would have been fine. You and I are fine. We haven't given each other anything since the ill-fated watch exchange of 2012, therefore, I don't expect anything. Billie is ten months old. She likes to chew on the furniture and suck other people's thumbs. I think she's fine with whatever you get her. Mary knows men know nothing about gift-giving, which women seem to have distilled into some sort of cult activity, so whatever you give her is fine. You got something good for Molly and that's the important thing." He shook his head.

"Raise my expectations, but lower my expectations."

"That's what you got from that big, long speech?"

"...Yes."

"Let's just get a cab and get out of here."

ZYX

"So it flies in time AND space. At the same time?" Sherlock questioned.

"Boo!" Mary shouted at him. "Shut up!"

Molly squeezed Sherlock's hand. "I'll explain it later," she whispered. She couldn't believe this was his first Doctor Who Christmas Special. It somehow seemed cruel.

But the baby was sitting in his lap, utterly transfixed by the screen.

"We saw her die at the beginning of the episode, how can-"

Mary reached around Molly and smacked Sherlock in the back of the head. "Shut up."

"John, she's abusing me."

"Shut up, then." He was sitting on the floor trying to put together an overly complicated baby playset, not really paying attention, on purpose. He'd watch it again by himself later without anyone talking. Otherwise he'd end up stabbing Sherlock in the face before the hour was over.

Molly twisted the earring in her ear. They weren't too big, so her hair wouldn't catch in the tines, nor be annoying at work. She liked them just fine. And it was sweet of Sherlock. Really sweet. "I really like the earrings," she whispered.

"I know. And the scarf isn't half-bad, either."

He'd put it on as soon as he'd opened it, and hadn't taken it off, so she knew that the scarf was a lot better than adequate. He'd probably tell her for real, later. There'd be a bit of thorough snogging, and perhaps some lap sitting and playful bum slapping before they headed off to bed, and he'd say that he really did like the scarf.

And the blueish-green really did bring out the colors in his eyes. "You should wear it next week to the thing," she whispered.

"There's a thing?"

"The New Year's do at the hospital. John and Mary are coming too. We won't stay long." That was one thing they could agree on-parties were… not their thing. They'd show up since it was polite, and she'd dance once or twice, and they'd be gone before midnight.

He seemed to be appeased by the knowledge that they'd be departing early. "People, noise… gawdy decorations…"

"I know. Home before midnight. Promise."

ZYX

How easily promises were broken when alcohol was involved, Sherlock thought drolly, as he looked out over the dance floor. The music was pounding, and the blood vessels in his forehead were thrumming in time to the beat. He'd lost track of Molly at some point. John had crashed out next to him, red-faced and a bit buzzed, but also kind of bored. "I remember parties being less horrible," John muttered. "Now they're full of loud music and people."

Maybe John was a little more than tipsy. But probably they were just getting old.

"The whole world is full of loud noises and people. I find human existence to be dreadful."

John nudged his shoulder. "Oh come on. You can dance with Molly once. I won't tell anyone."

Sherlock sighed, staring down at the empty beer bottle that had been his companion for the last hour. "John, it's loud and my head hurts. And I'm not sure I'd call what Molly does dancing."

"I don't even know where Mary is. I thought she'd be over here with you, quietly judging everyone.."

"Oh we judged everyone. Then she got bored and left." He stared into the bottle, like it held answers. "But she's also three sheets to the wind. Possibly six, by now, I think she's making up for lost time on the alcohol front."

John shrugged. It was an open bar. And half the people here hated each other because they saw each other every day. What else was there to do but drink? "She's adorable when she's drunk. She starts singing sea shanties. No joke. Actual sea shanties."

Sherlock chuckled. "At home Molly just gets maudlin and thinks about cats. Here? Tonight? She passed by once, red-faced and dragging some poor intern behind her." He leaned his head back against the wall. "We're stuck here until they've had their fill of partying, aren't we?"

"Unless we turn into cruel, heartless partners and abandon them for a case or something." There was a bit of pleading in John's voice.

"I was going to leave the Embassy breakin until tomorrow. But if you want to go tonight…"

"No, no. The chivalrous thing to do would be to escort our drunken ladies home safely. So that's what we'll do. Unless… you know. Something comes up."

They both giggled, but eventually it dissolved into silence. After a few minutes, John got them more beer, which they drank slowly and quietly, completely shut off to the world as noise and people swirled around them.

It was time for the pointless countdown, followed by more pointless fireworks before they knew it. "Are we socially obligated to find our partners and exchange kisses at midnight?"

John shrugged. "Dunno. She would have found me by now if it were required. I guess."

The lights came up a bit as the clock started counting down from thirty. People found their respective mates. John and Sherlock just sat there.

"The thing I don't get," Sherlock began. "Is why the Daleks look like star fish with eyeballs. That's not a normal mutation of-"

"It's a children's program, Sherlock."

Ten, Nine, Eight…

"Well, some effort could be made toward accuracy."

Five four three…

"Later."

Two…

"I just-"

John's lips slapped over Sherlock's cutting off the complaint before either of them could think about it. John pulled back just as soon as he'd come in for the kiss, and they both stared at the dead space between them awkwardly for a bit.

"Well, that happened," Sherlock commented as fireworks ignited outside.

"It did shut you up though. It's just a children's show."

"How does your wife feel about-oh. Never mind." He was looking toward the fire door. "Well."

"She knows I love you," John said honestly. He turned to see what Sherlock was staring at. "Well, I think we know two ladies who have had enough to drink tonight."

They both got up and crossed the makeshift dance floor, which had thinned as people went outside to see the fireworks. Leaning against the door, a blonde haired woman and a brunette were kissing each other red-faced. Hands may have been wandering.

Sherlock tapped Molly on the shoulder. "Time to go, I think."

Molly stumbled back a step, then wiped Mary's lipstick from her face with the back of her hand. That really just smeared it and made it worse. She giggled dreamily. "Wow. I haven't had one of those since university."

Mary leaned backward against John, a warm glowing contentment all over her face. John slid a hand around her waist, mostly to keep her upright. "Jooooohn. I'm ready to go home."

Christ. He'd never heard Drunk Mary before. It was almost terrifying. "Right. Everyone's going home. Either of you vomit in the cab, you get to pay the cleaning fee on your own, and walk the rest of the way to Baker Street."

Mary slid her arm up John's neck and cradled his head. "Did you and Sherlock have a nice one, love?"

"One what?" Sherlock asked. "Oh. That. It was brief but acceptable." he wondered if people kissing people who were not their own partners was going to become a thing, or if New Years had been some strange thing that had done everyone's heads in. Like Shakespearean magic. Or a gas leak.

Molly's fingers traced circles behind his ear. He almost pushed her hand away, but decided to leave it. "Everyone has to sleep in their own beds tonight, though. There's only so much ridiculousness I'll put up with in one night."

God, tonight had gone from tedious to weird in quick succession. He was almost terrified of what tomorrow would bring.


	8. Chapter 8

New Years Eve had been some new level of strange that Sherlock had hitherto been unaccustomed.

New Year's Day… had brought hangovers. Not for him or John. They were off looking into the embassy break-in thing. Mrs. Hudson still had the baby, and the two women were nursing their hangovers on different floors of the same house.

When he was getting dressed, Molly rolled over to grab her water bottle off the bedside table. "Are you mad?"

"People drink on new years. It's a tedious ritual, but it happens." He was learning to be more forgiving of people doing the things that people did, being with Molly.

"And the other thing?"

"What other thing?" he asked with half a smile. "I think you at least had the good sense to have a proper makeout session. John only kissed me to shut me up."

She gulped down as much water as she could without outright vomiting with the two painkillers Sherlock handed her.

"Oh god. Last night really DID happen then, didn't it?" Her head flopped back onto the pillow, and she moaned dramatically.

"Molly… our arrangements here are hardly… normal. I know that. Nothing about this household is normal." He sat next to her on the bed. "And I know things are… less normal with us." People didn't just share a bed for ages without having sex. That's just not how people worked. "I'm not faulting anyone a snog and a feel-up." He kissed her forehead, then her lips, which tasted like stale alcohol and beer nuts. "And the thing with John… I've decided I'm going to forget it ever happened." Not because the kiss had been wretched. But because he wasn't sure how to interpret what John had said directly after. Love, LOVE. Love-love… too many possibilities and implications.

"I understand why things are the way they are with us," Molly promised, taking his hand. "Don't you worry about that. I'm just… embarrassed that I got loaded and ended up making out with your best friend's wife."

"Let's just pretend last night never happened," Sherlock rushed to say. "You can consider your hangover penance and we'll just never talk about it ever again." Now he just needed to elicit the same promise from John Watson.

"Sounds like a plan."

He brushed the hair out of her face. "John and I are going to break into an embassy that's already been broken into. Should be fun."

"Don't get arrested," she warned, then pulled the duvet back up to her neck. "See you for dinner?"

"Hopefully." He made sure the curtains were closed properly, got her another bottle of water, then left her to nurse her misery in peace.

zyx

They sat in the ceiling, timing the guards as they passed. This had to have been how the thieves broke in.

"About last night," John started.

"I've decided it never happened," Sherlock said, right over the top of John's "I just thought it'd be funny."

And there it was. They'd both decided it was a bad idea.

Below, another guard passed. The floor sensor blinked three times. The pattern was starting to take shape.

"Told Molly the same thing today about her and Mary. Never saw it. Never happened."

"Good. Good." John nodded and went silent.

He glanced at his former flatmate. "You two went home and had drunk-sex last night, didn't you?"

John didn't say anything. That was about all the proof Sherlock needed. He made a face, but then turned thoughtful. "I know what people do. I know why they do it. But… sometimes I don't feel like I understand human beings."

A second later, his lips and John's had found each other's again.

That was not at all how this talk was supposed to go down. It hadn't been unpleasant. It hadn't been repulsive. He could have done that for a while, in fact. and it confused him.

"You don't understand human beings?" John asked, prompting when they finally pulled away..

"Like that. Exactly that." One more guard. One blink this time. Hmm. "I… like-care for-er… love Molly."

"We all can see that," John told him honestly. "Maybe this was just… getting something out of the system. It won't happen again. It doesn't have to happen again."

"That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying-I'm doing things wrong with Molly."

"You feel like you're cheating?"

He changed his footing on the beam and sighed. "Not everything is about you, John. Or my bizarre and ill-defined relationship with you and your wife." he looked down at the motion detectors and they failed to blink this time. Interesting. "I'm failing Molly. I'm… not doing a proper relationship in a correct manner."

John squinted at him for a moment, then gave up. "Sorry. I need more to go on."

"We haven't had sex yet."

"Oh." He could tell John was mentally regrouping, trying to figure out how to proceed without stepping on a landmine. "Should I-can I ask why?"

He ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know!" It wasn't for lack of trying. They kissed, they curled around each other, they touched each other in ways that made the other squirm or moan. "I… freeze up."

"You freeze up." John said in disbelief, then sat up straight. "I mean-not like that. I mean-you… freeze up?" The second was a bit more medically-minded.

"Yes, thank you. I just said that. I freeze up." And it wasn't like the kiss with John had sorted anything at all, really. He hadn't seen any sort of fireworks that had let him know that he was in a relationship with the wrong gender or person. It hadn't been unpleasant either. And if neither of them had been attached, he wouldn't mind it once in a while. He did love and care about John. The way that he loved and cared about him. He didn't know what that was. He loved Mary in some equally ill-defined way that one loved one's best friend's wife, and mother of said best friend's child.

Molly was the one he crawled into bed next to every night. And he did actually get into bed at night. He stayed up to play violin or experiment less and less. Just a bit after midnight, usually. Then he got in next to a sleeping Molly Hooper and slid an arm around her, enjoying her warmth and softness. Sometimes he slept with his hand slid up her night shirt, cupping her breast. And then, in the morning, if she woke around when he did, and she felt something pressing against her leg, she'd reach back to stroke it, and he would freeze. Every muscle tense, every nerve on fire, all of him caught in a vicious feedback loop of anticipation and dread.

Eventually, her hand would move to his hip, and he'd apologize.

Or they would be teasing, chasing each other around the flat, until one caught up with the other, and then they'd kiss, long and hard, one of them pressed against the wall. Hands would trail down sides, his hands would slip beneath her trousers to cup her backside, and the moment she did the same to him, he froze solid, his mind going blank, other than the anticipation and dread loop.

He explained it in far more detail than he was comfortable with. But John was his friend, and a doctor. Surely he'd have some idea about something. Anything. Anything that could help.

"Hmm."

"That was helpful."

"I'm thinking. Shut up."

A tone he'd never been on the other end of before. But Sherlock assumed even medical problems needed to be mulled over and picked apart now and again. He just wished he could deduce what John was going to say, because the suspense was killing him.

zyx#

Sherlock bounced Billie on his knee while she played with the skull. She liked to play with it, it kept her quiet, and so he and Molly had entered into a conspiracy several weeks ago to just never tell John about it.

"So, then, John says-John, who, has known me for how many years? Says 'have you spoken to someone about that?'"

Molly started laughing in the kitchen. "Have you spoken to anyone? Like who? Like a doctor? Like… John?" She licked a bit of sauce off of a wooden spoon, checking on the status of dinner.

"Apparently general practitioners and ex army doctors are not expert enough to give advice in the is just my luck. If I had a bleeding artery, he's my man. Have a… functioning problem and oh, I'll call you in to a specialist. Yes, John. I wish to discuss this with a stranger. That's exactly what I want to do."

"Well, John doesn't exactly come to me for pediatric advice either, you know. Everything's specialized. But still. I didn't think he'd fob you off like that." She popped her head into the sitting room. "Dinner in ten?" She waved a finger at the baby. "I think Billy the skull has got a loose tooth that Billie the child is wiggling free. Don't let her put it in her mouth."

"Toooooo!" The baby repeated happily.

Sherlock took the skull from the girl, which started instant crying. "Apparently I'm not allowed to let you choke to death," he told her. "Oh, look. Yes. Number six." He wiggled it free and put it in his pocket. "I'll cement it back in later. Unless you have something better in the lab."

Molly licked something off of her finger again. Dinner would be gone soon for all her taste testing. "No. Same stuff you have. How did the case end up?"

"We got arrested for breaking and entering. Which means it was an inside job. Mycroft's people can take it from there." The other Billie in the household was back to licking the top of the skull. "Who's the tiniest little phrenologist? You are! You are!" he looked up at Molly in horror. "I didn't just do that."

"Yes you did."

"I'm going to tell John she ate Billy's canine tooth and he's going to have to dig around in her nappies until she passes it."

She pointed the wooden spoon at him. "Don't you even have to stop tormenting him at some point."

"But It's fun to watch him panic. He at least panics. Mary just gets angry with me. He stresses out far too much about the Tiny Hellspawn. They're babies. They bounce. They're virtually indestructible. I think he'd wrap her in cotton wool, put that in bubble wrap, then more cotton wool and then a titanium case if he thought he could get away with it. I mean, look at her. She's licking a dead man's skull. She doesn't care about all of those things. We can learn a lesson from her. We should worry less and lick more human skulls."

"Sherlock…" Molly had no idea what to even say to that. "I have a pot of pasta to drain. Don't have any more brilliant ideas while I'm doing that."

He chuckled and turned the skull around. "This is where the brain stem goes. Can you say brain stem?"

She wasn't keen on various skull cavities and openings. She was more into the roof of the mouth, the eye sockets and the top of the cranium. The smooth bits, you could say. "Did you know, you can get shot right here in the eye and if it comes out at this angle, you'll just lose a few molars and a bit of jaw? Yeah! Right in the eye!"

He didn't know what to talk about with babies. He supposed shapes and letters and things. But that got boring after the first or ninth time. John did it because he thought it was cute. Mary did it because motherhood had made her some sort of mad dictator. Mary had a hand in it all. Educational videos, Mummy-baby swim lessons. Special outings. Toys that looked like medieval torture devices.

"Maybe we should have have Tiny Hellspawn and Uncle Sherlock time. We can go on outings to important places. Like the locations of the Ripper murders. That would be nice, wouldn't it?"

"Sherlock," Molly called from the kitchen, "Can't you just take her to a park and push her on the swings like a normal person?"

"First-boring. Second-people. Mothers who will mistake me for a single father and cling onto me like barnacles. This will involve polite conversations and small talk. I don't DO small talk. YOU don't do small talk. Therefore: let's avoid any activity that involves pleasantries. You don't have this problem on Ripper tours."

"Can we at least agree that you are not sneaking her to any crime scenes behind her parents' backs until she's at least seven or something? Please? No tucking her into your monstrous coat just for fun while you look over some mutilated corpse?"

Sherlock brought the baby into the kitchen, sans skull, which made her fussy. Molly was chopping up pasta into hand-sized pieces, and when the girl saw the food, her hands grabbed for it. "I can promise you nothing. What if I am watching her and the crime of the century happens?"

"Then you take her down to Mrs. Hudson's before you faff off to save the world. Think things through for once. Instead of always charging off into god knows what. I worry about you." She pushed the cooled pasta in front of Sherlock, so the baby could reach the food from his lap.

He took the opportunity to slide an arm around her. "Thank you," he said in quiet sincerity.

"For worrying?" She grabbed his empty plate and took it to the cooker. "You really don't know by now that we all love you and care about your well-being?" Putting the plate of pasta and sauce in front of him, she shook her head. "Really. You're a marvel sometimes."

He didn't say anything at first, the thoughts still processing in his head. He just watched Billie babble as she shoved plain pasta into her mouth. Intellectually, he knew it. It wasn't the same as… feeling it. Which he did. Sometimes. Other times all he could do is remind himself. "I'm not… built right, Molly. You should know that by now."

She wrapped an arm around his head and kissed his hair. "You are built just fine. Look at the rest of us. I have trouble talking to people who are still alive. John charges off after you headlong into madness. Mary lets him. And Mrs. Hudson grows cannabis in her kitchen flowerbox. We're all a little mad here."

"Down the rabbit hole?"

"Down the rabbit hole," she promised.

zyx

His best friend was married to an ex-assassin. That was true. Their precious spawn had an unnatural attachment to a skull. Molly willingly put up with him, and there were unfortunate YouTube videos of his sweet, elderly landlady.

No. It wasn't a normal household.

Sherlock still felt like the most abnormal person in it.

Which was why he was sitting in this waiting room with the soothing music playing, the wall-sized waterfall trickling at the entrance, the "soothing" green walls and wicker furniture with light purple cushions… it was probably going to make him vomit if he sat here any longer.

So he was actually quite happy when the man in the hideous polo shirt called him into the back room.

"I hope you didn't have too much trouble finding us. I'm Lawerence, you can call me Larry."

"I'll call you Lawrence." Sherlock did, after all, have his limits.

"Alright." The man held out a hand toward a high-backed leather chair. "Why don't you have a seat, and we can discuss why you're here."

Didn't he already fill out paperwork to that effect?

Then it started. The cotton blend polo shirt, the frames of family facing outward on the desk, instead of inward, the part of his hair… Don't start deducing him, Sherlock told himself. For once in your life, keep your damned mouth shut. This will go so much faster if you just don't-"Your pictures of your children are all older, at least two years. You're divorced, but like to pretend you still have a happy family. The pictures are facing outward, because you don't want to look at your wife, and because if other people say you have a beautiful family then you can pretend you do. The polo shirt has an ink stain on the collar-you're doing all of your own paperwork. Your front-of-office staff left. Probably because you were having an affair. Which precipitated the divorce. And you really ought to get that mole on your neck looked at…"

'Larry' sat in stunned silence, eyes wide and jaw slack. "I-"

Sherlock made a face, mad at himself. "Sorry. I do that when I'm nervous."

"Right. Your paperwork said you were a… consulting detective, is it?"

Sherlock sighed. This session and all subsequent sessions would surely be painful. Agonizingly painful. And dull. How was this person supposed to help him, if he was the smartest man in the room? Hell, the frogs in the lit tank in the corner probably had more going for them than Larry.

"Look, you've read my paperwork. Don't pretend like you haven't. And don't bother asking me to put it into my own words, I'm not going to, even if you feel it would be helpful or therapeutic in some sort of way. Just tell me how to sort this issue."

zyx

Molly collapsed face-first onto the bed when she got home at midnight. "There were a hellish number of bodies in the morgue when I got there. It's like everyone in the city up and died today." She was speaking into the pillow, but Sherlock could understand her. He'd learned how to interpret pillow-Molly-who-doesn't-want-to-deal-with-the-world-speak.

He set his tablet on his lap. "Any good ones for me?"

She turned her head to the side to face him. "God no. Surgery gone wrong, illness, natural causes…" She moaned in exhaustion. "And an infected monkey bite. Yes. I said monkey. How was your… thing."

"Interesting."

"So, you didn't fire him, he didn't fire you, and he's not dead in a ditch somewhere?" She propped her head up on her hand. "No unidentified corpse washing up on the riverbank?"

"Oh please. I have better disposal methods than that, firstly. Secondly, disposing of a body is incredibly tedious. Incredibly. Hardly worth killing someone for the tedium involved. I can think of better things to do with my time."

"Whatcha reading?"

"Psychological journal articles. He gave me homework. Said that if I was so good at figuring everyone else out, I ought to be able to narrow down my own problem, if given a list of resources. For an individual called Larry, he was rather reasonable."

Molly nuzzled her pillow, getting more comfortable. "Well, that's promising. Or he knows you're going to be a difficult patient. And doesn't want to end up in a barrel full of acid."

"I'm not a serial killer," he reminded her as he flipped a page on his table, moving to the next article.

"I think you'd be a good one, if you put your mind to it."

He couldn't help but giggle. "They'd never catch me. And you'd be my accomplice, of course. I think you'd be a much better accomplice than John."

Her nod was fast and full of enthusiasm. "John has a giant list of tells. And I've been your accomplice once already. So we know I'm good for it. What're we thinking? Body in the river? Burn the corpse? Lye?"

He glanced over at her. "You've thought far too hard about this."

"I get bored at work sometimes. Not tonight, mind you. But sometimes."

She snuggled a little closer to him, starting to regain some of her energy after pulling a double shift that day. "Dare I ask what kind of homework, or should I just be pleasantly surprised with the results? Unless they make you mad. Then unpleasantly surprised with the results."

Sherlock handed her the tablet. "Something like self-diagnosis. He gave me a list of things to try. Then determine which one sounded more like my specific problem. So far, no headway. No childhood trauma. Well, I mean, other than having Mycroft for a brother. Which practically gives me PTSD flashbacks. But not that either. No traumatic past sexual experiences. I found them mostly to be pleasant if a bit… overwhelming." He stopped and squinted, an idea planting itself in his head. "Huh."

He yanked the tablet out of her hands and backed up in the database he was using and did a search for something that hadn't been on the list of things to try. "I'm going out on the sofa. This is going to take a while."

She shrugged, and as soon as he got up she snatched his pillow, giving her three (more than any human needed, Sherlock always protested) and somehow stretched out so she was diagonal on the bed. Molly never took it personally when he left the room. Sometimes he just needed to think, and having her there was counter-productive to concentration. He only put up with John in the room sometimes because John asked questions that put him onto the right answers.

He flopped down onto the sofa. But not before grabbing the obnoxious Hello Kitty blanket off The Chair Formerly Known As His Chair and threw it over his legs. Head on the arm of the sofa, he turned on his side and started looking through the articles. John would be angry. He had a thing about self diagnosis (probably because the average GP practice visitor was an idiot) and having a professional allow him to all but diagnose himself would have elicited a string of expletives and a monologue about the decline of the profession and irresponsibility and whatever else John talked about when he went into those tears.

Of course, John threw out cough medicine that was expired by only a month, so Sherlock took his friend's medical opinions with a grain of salt. Unless John's fingers were personally holding one of his arteries closed to keep him from bleeding out. Then he trusted John implicitly.

The first article wasn't right. It seemed like he had skipped several steps in the process, and was now looking at an analysis of treatments for something he wasn't even sure about. But he held onto the article to look at later.

Mycroft would be so annoying about this. If he knew what Sherlock was looking at. Of course, Mycroft probably did know already. For a man who WAS the government, Mycroft sure didn't have anything better to do with his time than spy on his little brother's internet history. Sherlock decided he needed a puppy or something. Or more cake. Christmas had been fun, in its own way, getting the chastising lecture about the Christmas cake delivery. They'd probably never stop tormenting each other.

At least there were some constants in his world-a world which had changed far too rapidly since he had returned from the dead. Mary, John's marriage, Molly moving in, John moving BACK in, practically. But with a tiny demonspawn in tow. And this whole… thing with Molly. Where they always seemed on the verge of doing something, until Sherlock kind of died quietly inside from anticipation and dread.

"Hmm…" he read the abstracts of a few more articles. He probably didn't need to read the whole article or study to get the basic concepts at this point. Especially when he wasn't entirely sure that they applied directly to his particular issue. But this… sounded like him. Depressingly so. "Way to be broken," he whispered to himself.

The door in the kitchen swung open when he was engrossed in an article that did sound like it met the criteria he had developed. "Oh. Good. You're awake."

"It's after midnight," Sherlock responded, peeved. "Not babysitting your demon spawn," Sherlock said, going back to reading.

Mary sighed, crossing the room. "John never came home from work." She flicked him in the forehead. "I left at five, he was supposed to leave at six. Six hours is a bit late from a GP practice, don't you think?"

"Fights recently? Does he need to escape your mewling offspring?"

"He's not answering his phone, or his texts. In fact, the phone is shut off. The last place it was turned on was five miles from here. That's a bit of a detour on the way home, don't you think?"

"He's ex-military. How does he keep getting himself into these things?"

Mary frowned. "He knows you."

"Maybe his phone got stolen?" he asked in that hopeful voice Molly had, when she knew she was saying something utterly stupid.

"And he's spent the last six hours looking for it. Ok. Great. Thank you. If you're not going to look for him, I will. In which case you WILL be on babysitting duty."

He kicked the blanket off his ankles and went into the bedroom. "Let me put on clothes. When's the last time you talked to him?" Not bothering to close the door, he pulled out fresh trousers and a shirt. There was no telling how long this would take.

"This morning. I was busy, he was busy. I didn't really see him. And I knew he was leaving late. So I dashed out to grab the baby from child care and went on home. I didn't even think about it. Oh god. What if he's been gone since right after we got to work?"

"You'd have heard someone asking where your husband is."

"Point."She sighed.

"You're panicked. It's fine." If Mary hadn't been in such a state, she'd have figured out that small detail on her own.

He slid out of his pajama bottoms, tossing his dressing gown on the bed, then got rid of his t-shirt as well. he really didn't give a fig if she was standing in the doorway.

Molly looked at him strangely, likely wondering when did he start divesting himself in front of others, when he had taken months to do so in front of her, but didn't say anything. She simply rolled out of bed and went over to Mary, grabbing her arm. "Sherlock will find him." Gently, she tugged Mary toward the kitchen. "Let's make some proper tea or something." That fixed things. Sort of.

Mary shook her head, crossing her arms over her chest. "No, I'm going with him. Mrs. Hudson has the baby. I didn't tell her why."

Sherlock came out of the bedroom buttoning his shirt. "That's fine. Are you armed?"

She frowned at him, as if that were a ridiculous question.

"Alright, alright. Silencer, I suppose? The whole getup?" He grabbed his blueish-green scarf that Molly had given him for Christmas, then his coat.

"Sherlock, how long have we known each other?"

"Right. We're off. Molly, hold down the fort."

Turning on the kettle for herself, she sighed. Always something. She hoped John was alright. But she was still quite glad not to be running off after him. It was very much not her thing.


	9. Chapter 9

Mary flicked John's ear. "I could kill you. I could really, really kill you and not even feel remorse."

John winced. "Head. Head."

Sherlock looked around them making sure they were alone. "Let's just get him home. We can tell him he's stupid later."

"I was trying to help someone-"

"Stupid John. As I was saying."

Mary and Sherlock slid an arm under each side of John, hoisting him to his feet. "Let's just go home…" John groaned, trying to steady himself. He tried to see straight, but it was futile. Everything shifting and vibrating in front of him. "No good deed goes unpunished," he muttered.

They got him to Mary's car and set up in the back. he probably didn't need a hospital. Most likely. "Um… thanks for finding me?"

Mary backed up, away from the warehouse's dock area. "You might change your mind when we get home, Mister."

Sherlock handed John his scarf. "Wipe the blood off your neck. You're sure it's just that cut behind your ear?"

"Head wounds are bitches. Bleed forever."

But he did wipe the blood away and let Sherlock take a look. "Nice. Abrasion AND a slice. You don't do things half-arsed."

John leaned against the headrest. "Yes. Thank you. If I reiterated that I was trying to help the kid, would it make any difference?"

"Not even a little bit," Mary said in a fiery tone. "You are so… ugh. You have a small child at home."

"I didn't know it was going to turn into an ugly territory feud. The kid said his brother needed help. I tried to help the brother NOT die, and this is the thanks I get. And by the way, I did hold my own pretty well, considering I had no gun and only my smooth moves to rely on."

Sherlock snorted. "Smooth moves indeed."

John kicked the front passenger seat and groaned. "I think I got clipped in the kneecap too." When he reached for it with his left arm, he yelped. "Oh sweet mother of fuck."

"And you've dislocated your already damaged and shot-up shoulder," Sherlock said drolly. "Hospital now or later?" he asked Mary.

"Hey! I'm the actual doctor here," John protested in a strained voice. "Let's just go to one closer to home. I'll be fine."

"Yes, except the more that swells the harder it is going to be to put it into place," Mary sniped. "I do have some actual healthcare qualifications you know. The nursing degree is real." She handed her phone to Sherlock. "Find the nearest hospital that accepts idiots who think they're still twenty without asking a lot of questions."

Sherlock took the phone and looked at her for a second. "You know," he said casually to John. "I kind of like it when she bosses me around."

John groaned. "Just find a damned hospital so we can get this over-with."

zyx

John's major movements for the next week consisted of bedroom to sofa, then back again. Every time Sherlock wanted to bother him (or torture him) he had to go all the way down to the basement flat. And whenever John was in bed, Sherlock had to pass through the kitchen and stare at the ugly tile. Cobalt blue. What was Mary thinking?

'I'll tell you what I was thinking,' she'd told him when they moved in, 'that it's my damned kitchen and I'll have it how I like.'

So cobalt blue tile behind the counters it was. He was far more fond of the medicinal green up in the B flat, it made the kitchen feel like a proper laboratory. The way a kitchen ought.

The baby was off at childcare, and Mary was at work, so Sherlock flopped down on the bed next to John, case file in hand. "How do you feel about entire missing boats?"

John turned to face him crankily. "Boats go missing all the time. Not our circus, not our monkey."

"But this is better than a regular missing-"

"No."

"But I haven't even told you about-"

"No."

"When was your last painkiller?" Sherlock asked, automatically reaching for the bottle.

"When Mary got up. I don't need anything. I'm just fine." He tried to turn away from Sherlock, onto his side, but the brace on his knee and stabilizer on his shoulder made it a clunky and difficult job.

Sherlock handed him two tablets and a glass of water. "Oh just take them. You're a cranky donkey's behind right now. At least if they put you to sleep I won't have to listen to you grumbling about the great case I snagged for us."

John held the tablets in his palm, eyeing Sherlock suspiciously. "Yeah? If you don't want to hear me whine, why'd you come down here? Wasn't the door locked or something?"

"Deadbolted. But… whatever." It wasn't the first time Sherlock had gotten around a set of locks. "dead bolting it just prolongs the inevitable."

"Your visit?"

Sherlock sat back down on the bed, opening the blue folder. "You must have been a barrel of laughs once you got to the rehab unit in the Army. They probably discharged you because they couldn't stand your moaning."

"Sherlock, if this doesn't heal up, I am going to need surgery. This is my shooting arm. Hell, this is my WRITING arm. I already had to give up surgery because of this arm. So if I am a cranky arse, I think I have good reason to be. And you have generally been an annoyance this whole time. If the gun weren't in the safe in the cupboard, I would have shot you at least two days ago."

"There's obviously a reason they say doctors make the worst patients," Sherlock noted dully. "You are no fun any more. It's all grumpiness and sadness. Over nothing. Your arm will heal. So will your knee. You'll be fine. I'm trying to entertain you while you convalesce. I feel like I am casting pearls before swine, here."

"Fine. am I supposed to do on this disappearing boat-ship-whatever case?"

"Just let me talk through it. I'm sure we'll think of something clever for you to engage yourself in."

"Ug." John sunk his aching head into the pillow. .

"Ok. So it's a cargo ship. On radar, here." He held up a map which John didn't bother looking at. "Then eight minutes later, nothing. Nothing from any of the other ships near by, either. Just… poof, gone."

John closed his eyes, not caring. "I hate the sound of your voice right now. Just so you know."

"It's ok. I love the sound of my own voice. I can make up for you not liking it…"

zyx

When Mary got home, she pulled the baby out of her itty bitty purple suede coat (she admitted the child-clothes purchasing addiction-she owned it fully) and plunked her down on the sofa so she could strip her own outerwear and bags. Her favorite tiny person cooed excitedly at being home, even if she looked like she was going to drop over at any second. They told her at care today that she hadn't taken a single nap. This meant an early-evening nap, then being up half the night. And it'd be cruel to make John stay up with her.

She was still annoyed with her husband for letting some kid lead him off into a gang situation so he could remove the bullet out of some thug who was too afraid to go to the hospital. But he'd really been a poor thing lately. Men were always poor things when injured or sick. But he'd been especially pathetic the last week or so. Somehow she figured Sherlock was contributing to the patheticness.

"Dadaddadadada," the baby cooed as she clapped her hands, exceptionally proud of herself.

"Oh we'll visit him in just a second. Let mummy hang her coat up." And she now spoke about herself in the third person. "And I think someone needs a changing before we go attack daddy with our love."

She took the baby into her nursery and got her changed up, and out of her outdoor clothes and into something a little easier to play in. She wasn't admitting to having three outfits a day for her girl, but… Well. It was what it was. Had to get all those outfits in before she outgrew them.

There was snoring going on in the bedroom, but she didn't recognize it as her husband's. Poking her head in, she had to smile. Yes, Sherlock was the reason for John's intense grumpiness the last few days. There was an open file between them, and Sherlock was doing the weird thing where he slept like a corpse, arms folded across his chest. Kissing John softly on the lips, she pushed the papers into the folder one-handed and removed it from the bed, setting it on the bedside table. Coming around the other side of the bed, she gave Sherlock one on the forehead, and gently set the baby between them.

She probably had an hour or so before Molly came dragging herself home. They were understaffed and she was working ten, twelve and sixteen hour days. So she put a note on their door to come downstairs for dinner (Molly would shower and come down in her pajamas-certain patterns were set) and went about putting together a semi-attractive salad to go with some frozen pizzas that would be enough for four, plus a baby that liked to gnaw on crust. Nothing fancy. When John was working, and he got home first, he managed to slap together a curry and rice in less than an hour. She had no idea how it was done, but it was this or another casserole.

The baby was asleep between John and Sherlock when she got back from posting the note on Molly's door. A lovely, peaceful group if ever she'd seen. Since she had time before she put the pizzas in, she picked up the file and sat on the sofa with it, reading through with a modestly-portioned glass of wine. It wasn't too hard to figure out. But Sherlock just didn't have her background in certain things. He'd be annoyed if she gave him the solution, but she scribbled it out on a series of post it notes, stuck to pertinent pages.

Another ship was in on it. They let the ship in question piggyback next to them, then turned their ship to hide the presence of another huge cargo freighter. Only the one ship would ping on the radar, and then both ships slip off into the night and share the bounty. Easily sorted. And Bob's your uncle. She should tell Sherlock to contact her on any lost submarines, she was good for those too. Is it a whale? Is it a ship? Is it both? Oh the beautiful limitations of sonar in deep, craggy places.

Hearing Molly come in the front door, she put everything back in the folder and left it on the night stand for her boys to find when they finally woke up. John was probably drugged up fairly well. Who knew what kept Sherlock pacing in his flat every night. But she could hear it when she got up with the baby. So he probably deserved his rest as well.

Tossing the pizzas in the oven, she found plates and the rest of what you were supposed to have for a semi-reasonably healthy dinner. There wasn't much to do after that. The salad was taken care of, the table was set. Actual time to herself. Well, mostly watching the timer on the wall so she didn't burn the pizza to a crisp. But she didn't quite know what to do with herself for the next seventeen minutes. There'd been a novel she had been neglecting for months. But she didn't think she had the concentration at the moment. She could clean something, she supposed. There was always something that needed cleaning. Not up to taking anything to the bins, she settled for wiping down the refrigerator and doing a quick mop of the kitchen floor. One of them did it every day, but they figured it was better for Billie that way.

The buzzing of the timer started the shifting and groaning in the bedroom. The shifting was Sherlock. The groaning was John.

"Food in five minutes," she informed them as she pulled the pizzas out. They'd have to sit for a bit before she could cut into them without making a mess. "There will be actual salad and green food as well," she promised.

Sherlock came out with the sleeping baby tucked under his arm like a rugby ball. "Feed me," he grumbled hoarsely.

Laughing, she got him a glass of water. "Aren't you a gem when you first wake up. I'm nominating Molly for sainthood."

He drank the water down in one go and loudly set it on the table. Somehow the baby still stayed asleep. "You have to be dead first. And Catholic."

She slapped his free arm gently. "Hyperbole, Sherlock," she told him gently.

"Oh. Yes."

They just pointed those things out now days. They did it nicely, he had moved past getting offended, and life moved on. Hyperbole, sarcasm, sentiment. It just went faster and saved problems if they made nothing of it and moved on. He hadn't insulted a victim (or made them cry) in at least three months.

"Molly should be down in a bit. I left a note on the door that we'd be eating down here. Figured like a waste to kick you out and make her cook after she's put in a full day."

"Hey, I cook!" And he did, too. Molly made him at least maintain the illusion that he was doing his fair share in the flat. Which, by all accounts, was far more than John had ever managed to foist on Sherlock. But that's because John liked to ignore things until he exploded over them. They'd been together long enough for her to figure that much out.

"Mm hm." That was all Mary said about it. Molly deserved edible food, really, was the subtext she was getting at. Frozen pizza wasn't the greatest thing in the world, but it was, by most accounts, edible. "Anyways, there's salad on the table. Spinach and some other stuff."

"I'll wait for the pizza," he grumbled.

"Oh don't give me that. One whole serving spinach. I'll watch you eat it. Good for the iron, good for the heart. Helps you take proper shits."

He squinted.

"Yes, I said shits. It will help you take proper ones." She snatched the baby from under his arm. "What was mean Uncle Sherlock doing to you? Using you for sport practice?

Sighing Sherlock sat down and got himself some salad. The women in his life were far too harassive and sometimes it was easier to just do what they asked than assert, oh, his independence. It was entirely possible he was no longer an autonomous human being now that he lived in the same building as Molly and Mary. At least John used to fetch the newspapers and the post.

John hobbled on out, one hand on the wall as he came into the kitchen. Slowly, carefully, he lowered himself into a chair with a high back. "Sherlock double-dosed me with pain killers," he whined.

"You actually took them," Sherlock reminded him. "So you must have been in a hell of a lot of pain, and too stubborn to do anything about it."

"Doctors make the worst patients," Mary reminded.

"Will everyone stop saying that?" He reached out with his good arm for the baby.

Mary gladly handed her over. John bounced the girl lightly against his chest. "We'll stop saying it once you start acting like a good, compliant patient. Pain medication every six hours. Not when you're in so much pain you turn into a cranky bitch. Ice it when you need to. Actually get up and move around, and work the muscles in your leg. Don't just sit around and mope."

Sherlock grinned at her. That was his girl. Right there. Keeping John Watson in line.

Molly came into the flat a few minutes later, through the small sitting room, into the larger kitchen (which had actually been a dining area and kitchen, before Mary had the contractor knock out a wall). Her hair was wet, and she had her fluffy pink dressing gown open, revealing fluffy pink pajama bottoms, and one of Sherlock's grey t-shirts. If John wanted to continue living relatively pain-free, he wouldn't say anything about it.

"Smells lovely," she said with a broad smile. "I need to eat something that didn't come from a vending machine."

She kissed Sherlock on the neck, rubbed the baby's head and gave John a quick kiss on the temple. "Feeling any better?"

"Groggy. Your flatmate double-medicated me this morning. But at least I didn't have to listen to him go on about freight ships." He made a face.

Turning around with the pizza cutter still in hand, Mary suddenly remembered how she'd spent a whole half hour after she'd gotten home. "Oh. Yeah. That thing. Sherlock, I left you some Post-It notes… It's not something you'd know to look for unless… well, you've looked for it before. Anyways, you can knock that one off your list of cold cases. I mean, after you actually track down the two ships involved. But whatever. I did the heavy lifting."

"John, your wife is extremely modest," he told his best friend in dry sarcasm.

"At least I don't need to listen to you go on about ship schedules."

"Be nice, you two," Molly chastised before she sat down. "You don't want the baby picking up any MORE bad habits, do you?"

They both slowly turned their heads to look at her. "What kind of bad habits?" John asked.

"She enjoys saying the S-word," Molly informed them.

"The S-word?" He looked at the baby, then back to Molly.

Mary rolled her eyes. "Shit, John. The word you are looking for is shit."

Billie instantly perked up. "Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit…"

"Wonderful," John moaned. "I'm sure she's a hit with the other children."

Mary began sliding pizza on to plates. "Well, they haven't said anything about her cursing habit yet. Maybe she just does it when prompted?" She gave Sherlock the evil eye.

He looked up at the ceiling and shrugged in his usual 'I-don't-care' sort of attitude.

"Well, thank you for teaching my child her first curse word. Whatever would we do without."

"Be bored and possibly in jail?"

Mary slapped the pizza onto Sherlock's plate especially hard. "Put this in your mouth and eat it. I need to listen to the sounds of silence for a while."


	10. Chapter 10

His second meeting with Larry had gone better than expected. They seemed to have a certain understanding about them. He presented the therapist with three articles of possible issues that seemed to ring true to him, and Larry looked them over.

"Good, good. Yes, I agree. And all three of these fit together. They could actually be one single diagnosis. But we'd need to do some testing. Still, let's focus on the Sensory Processing Disorder one first. I think it fits the previous discussion of your methods…"

When he left, Sherlock didn't even know how he felt. He probably needed another therapist just to work through what this one was telling him. Of course, most of it was subject to testing, which he really wasn't in the mood for, but at least they had a working theory.

It would require more reading, of course. But he sensed Mary was getting annoyed with him walking the floors and pacing while he read late at night. He'd probably consumed more academic research in the last few weeks than actual trained psychologists. Well, at least he'd have that to fall back on should the detective thing not work out.

It was Molly's day off, so she was in her blue grandmotherly chair that they'd moved into the flat with the rest of her things. She looked up from her knitting when the door opened. "How'd everything go?"

"I have absolutely no idea. I have answers… which leads to loads more questions." He sighed. "More research needed, I suppose. And I was given the names of a few books to read."

"Slow progress is still progress," she assured him.

He tossed himself onto the sofa on the other side of the room. "Because I am so very patient. I want myself sorted NOW. Not two books and countless articles from now."

Putting her knitting in the basket next to her chair, she got up and went over to him. He sat up so she could sit down, then rested his head in her lap. "You want it sorted. Just keep that goal in mind?"

"I'm sorry."

"Quit apologizing."

He frowned. "I'm not a proper bedmate. At some point you are going to figure that out and leave."

Molly ran her hand through his hair. "Sherlock, you are a lot of things. Rude. Cantankerous, lazy, obsessive, messy, sometimes devoid of common sense. And you're brilliant, and you're brave and you do genuinely care about the people you help, even if you never show it. I know all the important stuff. And I'm still here. So, no, I'm not going to 'figure it out' and leave."

Staring down at the carpet, he shook his head. "I know you have needs, and I'm not doing right by you."

A giggle escaped Molly's lips suddenly, which she choked down as quickly as possible. "Oh love. When I go shopping, I am sure to buy a lot of batteries."

He stared up at her for a moment until his brain caught up. "Oh. I see."

"And this isn't just about me. Believe it or not. You should be doing this for you too, not out of guilt. Sex is fine and lovely, but not if it's out of obligation, ok?"

His right eyebrow crept upward. "Do you really think I do things I don't want to?"

"Actually wanting to, and thinking you want to are not the same thing. I mean-I've learned. If you're taking life advice from me. Which maybe you shouldn't."

"Who else am I going to take it from? You're here. You understand what my brain's like-corridors upon corridors of…. stuff.

"That you sometimes put to good use."

Sherlock closed his eyes. "Larry The Therapist-I'm sure he has a last name, I just never cared to learn it-he thinks it's a sensory processing disorder. I freeze because I'm afraid it might be TOO good."

Molly smiled. "Interesting reason. Actually, that's kind of sweet." But there was a sadness in her eyes. Pity? He didn't know. "So what do we do about it?"

"I haven't quite worked that bit out yet either. But he says that's probably why I can walk into a room and SEE everything all at once. My brain isn't filtering my senses-it's only processing what I've seen AFTER I have taken it all in. Maybe it's why I make a good detective and a lousy grocery shopper."

Molly laughed. "I'm sure there're lots of reasons you are a poor shopper. The least of which is your Internet addiction."

"You're taking this far better than I deserve. You have been for months."

"Sherlock, you don't even know what you deserve. Sometimes it is a kick to the head, sometimes it's just some patience and time. We're fine. Like I said. Copious amounts of batteries." She leaned down and kissed his nose. "And I have my own problems. I mean, no one in this nut-farm is normal. But, you know, Mary and John pass better. You'd never know that they're both addicted to trouble. It's the cuddly jumpers, I think."

"And us?" Sherlock asked hopefully.

She tugged the ends of his hair a little, which he always seemed to like. "When I was interning, my bedside manner was so awful my advisor told me to go into pathology." She blushed. "I can't talk to strangers. I never could. They thought I was… stupid growing up. Because I didn't talk to anybody." She shrugged. "I'm here. You keep me here. It's fine."

He blinked. Stupid? Molly. "You seem just fine."

"Fine is relative. We went to that New Years party and I had more booze at that thing than I've had since university. Possibly total. Cos I was terrified to talk to anyone not in my department." She blushed. "I have no idea how the thing with Mary started. Most of that is hazy."

"Oh. Huh." He hadn't really thought of a good explanation for why Molly had said they'd be gone before midnight, then the next thing he knew she was deeply intoxicated. "I used to do that at university. To be around people. To shut down my brain."

"See? Matched set."

And it did make Sherlock feel better. Now knowing conclusively that they were each rubbish around other people in their own special way. They were alike sometimes. There were times when they both wanted to flee public places. Neither of them really cared for the trains, or even the tube stations with their clacking and echoing and lack of personal space. They both were annoying fiddlers with things. she channeled it into knitting, and he the violin, but if neither were at hand, just about anything else would do. He supposed he'd never noticed that. Or really put much thought into it. "He also said I may have some...other things."

"Are they finally going to put you on happy pills for when you turn into a human rain cloud when you don't have cases?" Molly joked.

"Um…" he hesitated. "I'm not sure if I want to. I mean, what would it change? Really? Knowing?" It would be equal parts relief and terror, he was convinced. And he didn't know if he could go through with it. Ignorance, sometimes, was bliss.

"Knowing what?"

"He wants me tested for autism."

"Oh."

zyx

"Why is the shortest person in this flat the one dusting the high places?" Molly asked, trying to maneuver a long-reach duster into a corner over a bookcase. The cobwebs had dust on them, it hadn't been done in so long.

"I used to ask that same question when I lived here," John said, as he pulled the furniture out for her. One-handed, of course. The knee was better but the arm was still a pain. Still, he could do it far faster than her. "I don't think he acknowledges the existence of anything over his sight level. I put his birthday gift on the fridge and he didn't notice it for a month."

"Still. It's nice to get it done while he's out of the flat. For godsakes don't clean anything while he's working at the desk. He'll get into a panic about you moving his precious piles of paper because the dust on the piles tells him their age."

John laughed as he pulled the chairs away from the fireplace. "Don't touch the dust!" he shouted in his best imitation of Sherlock's voice. "The dust telllllls me things," he mocked generously.

"Hah!" Molly hopped off her chair and moved it over, so she could do the rest of the corner. Sometimes she fantasized about dressing up in black PVC, sitting in his chair with the Taser with her legs crossed, tapping her foot while she made him clean. There were some really naughty parts deep inside of her. Really.

John pulled the drawer out on the table, removing a handful of butterscotch wrappers and dumping them in the nearest bin. The windows were open and a stiff breeze pushed through occasionally, stirring around the dust, but also getting rid of some of the winter funk. Molly was very serious about spring cleaning. "What did you say he was doing today?"

"Oh his specialist sent him to another specialist," she said casually, passing it off as nothing.

John paused. "So, not only did he go to see the fellow I set him up with, he's seeing someone else besides? The man who hasn't had a tetanus booster in fifteen years because it would mean walking into a doctor's office?"

Molly smiled. "Yeah. And he complains the whole time. But he wanted to do it, in the end. As long as the first bloke warned the second person about him, I think it's fine."

"Warned? He didn't get fobbed off for being a horrendous git, did he?"

"Oh, no no. They just… have a unique situation. He lets Sherlock go off and do homework, then Sherlock comes back and tells him what HE thinks the problem is."

"Oh, That's tricky. I like it."

"He was sure you would disapprove."

John sat in his old chair. "Do you know the hell I used to go through to get him to go to a hospital sometimes? I am shocked to death he even went to the person I made him an appointment with."

Molly shrugged. It kind of wasn't John's business. And it kind of was. It was weird, Sherlock having a best friend who was a doctor. "I didn't think he'd take the appointment with the other specialist. I told him it was his choice. I didn't care either way. I told him to look at it like… a toe fungus."

John folded his arms over his chest, bouncing on his heels. "Oh, I'm sure he loved that."

She shook her head. "There was a context. I just mean… he had a list of things that sounded right for what he was struggling with. And… we read up on what to do about it. And if any of those solutions helped, maybe he should consider the diagnosis more seriously. Like a toe fungus. It's itchy, you try antifungal medication. If it works, it was a fungus. If not, you go to the doctor and find out what it is. That's all." She pushed her hair out of her face. "It won't change anything."

Molly put down the duster and curled up into her own chair. "And we tried some of them. And it worked. So he was a little more open to the idea of talking to an 'obvious idiot' about his issues. We'll see what happens."

"Am I allowed to ask what they think the issue is?"

"I think that's his story to tell."

"Fair enough."

"And as long as he's not too embarrassed, I think he will. You're his best friend. Danger-buddy. Really strange life mate. Whatever you want to call it."

John shook his head and smiled. "Yeah. We don't quite have a definition for that. Sorry about the kissing thing, by the way. Again."

She waved it off. "He said it was fine. He wouldn't mind doing it if you both weren't attached. But you might not want to bring it up again." It had been months, certainly they weren't still going in circles about that.

"Well, I'm glad I didn't scar him or something."

Molly laughed. Scar Sherlock. Sherlock was the one who let John's daughter play with a real human skull. "Oh don't you worry about him. He's tougher than he looks."

He put his elbow on the arm rest and put his head in his palm. "It's just...I know this is Sherlock we're talking about. The most reticent man in the history of the universe. But I'm a doctor. There isn't much I haven't heard."

Molly shook her head. "Sorry. I'd feel terrible if I said anything and he didn't want me to. Besides. Nothing's conclusive until the results are back."

She stared at the vacuum. She was going to have to Hoover under the furniture soon. Probably the first time it'd been done in ages, too. But, then the spring cleaning would be over, and Toby would stop sneezing. It was bad when the cat had allergies.

He held his hands up defensively. "Alright, alright. I won't press you or him. It's just… the whole situation is weird. Sherlock actually seeking medical advice."

Molly pulled her knees up to her chest. "I think he's finally figuring out that it's ok to be happy. That's all. And he's got a whole family here. A whole load of us who care. So there's no real reason for him to play at being a lone wolf character any more. He's even being nice to Greg's people sometimes."

John nodded. "Yeah, I've noticed. More importantly, THEY have noticed. Who'd have guessed that the desire for sex could drive Sherlock Holmes into NOT calling Anderson a twat all the time."

"It's not that," Molly said quickly. "It's more complicated than that. We're… sorting it out. It's ok. It's a good thing."

John let it drop. He knew Sherlock was complicated. He had his own suppositions about what Sherlock's issues were. But he didn't blame Molly for not wanting to share a private matter that wasn't hers to share."Other than that… you two are good?"

She made an indeterminate face. "You know how it is. The ups, the downs. The conversations with the cat. I don't know. We might get a dog."

"You really think he'll walk a dog and take it outside to do its business."

Molly grinned. "Not a chance in the world. I know his limitations." With reluctance she got up from the chair and began unraveling the power cord for the vacuum cleaner. "How often did you vacuum in here?" she asked as she plugged it into the outlet.

John shrugged. "Quarterly? When I could see the dust on the carpet. Or when Mrs. Hudson made us. Or got disgusted enough to do it herself. Yeah. Once a quarter."

"Oh great." She turned the Hoover on, glad for the end of that conversation.

She and Sherlock had had numerous discussions over the last few weeks about the whole testing thing. They'd gone round in circles with potential benefits, potential risks (if it got out, would the police be willing to work with him?) and a whole lot of research and arm-chair diagnosis, of which Molly was on the receiving end more than once. Maybe Sherlock was making sense. He seemed to be making sense, when he talked about her habits and trouble in group situations, but she wondered if he was diagnosed, if he just didn't want to be alone. Somehow, she had a soft spot for that.

And no matter what, he'd never be alone.

If only she could convince HIM of that.

zyx

"Yes, yes. I know. I know. I KNOW. I know. I KNOW." Sherlock beat the back of his head gently against the wall.

Molly barely contained a giggle.

He switched ears with the mobile phone, looking like he was ready to die. "I know. Yes. I know." His chest deflating, he went over to the desk and scribbled something on a piece of paper, then held it up to her.

'Go downstairs and ring the doorbell.'

Oh.

Without asking why, she did as he wanted. She rang it once, then two more times, holding it down the last time for good measure. Satisfied with her thoroughness, she wandered back up the steps.

"I know. I have a case. Yes. They ring three-not everybody only rings twice if they're a client. Oh look, Molly let them in. Have to go, we'll have to do this again later. Ta." Without waiting for the person on the other end to stop talking, he ended the call, then tossed the phone on his chair. "You are a lifesaver. An angel in human form. A blessing to all who know you." He wrapped his arms around her, pinning her arms to her sides and squeezed tightly, picking her up off the ground.

"Hey, hey, I need to breathe. Who WAS that?"

He put her down, wide eyed and breathing heavily. "That… was mummy."

She laughed. "Your mother? Surely it can't be that bad."

"She wants to meet you."

"Oh. Well." Were they at that point? It was almost a year since she'd moved in. Maybe it was.

She put a hand on his neck, and was going to stretch up to kiss him until she felt his heart rate. "Sherlock.." Looking into his eyes, the pupils were dilated. "Sit down, ok?"

"What? Why?"

Molly had to push him into his chair. "Because I think you're having a panic attack."

"I'm not having a panic attack. It's fine. Everything's fine." His hand waved in front of his face. "She just drives me nuts. That's all. She drives me insane and she's so… pushy. Just… quit checking my pulse." He pushed her hand away. "I've never had a panic attack before in my life."

That made Molly laugh.

"What? Do I look like someone who is prone to panic attacks? In my line of work? Quick, cold thinking. Not...panic."

"Your mum does not require quick cold thinking. In fact, I think she gets you kind of emotional."

"Well, she's so… so…" He groaned in disgust, devoid of a word that encapsulated his mother.

She ran her hands through his hair. "You know, you ridiculous man, you dislike talking to her so much you made me go ring the doorbell. Obviously talking to her is a little tense."

A head popped through the kitchen door a moment later. "I heard the door. Client?"

Molly shook her head. "Sherlock was on the phone with his mum."

"Ohhhhh," he said in understanding. "Everything ok, there?"

Sherlock's lips pressed together and he gave the slightest shake of his head to Molly, telling her explicitly not to say anything to John.

She almost said something. John was a proper doctor, not one who cut people up for a living. John would have real medical advice. But if he didn't want anything said, she wouldn't force it. Still-this was going to be another uncomfortable conversation later.

Still standing behind him, she kept her hand in his hair. "I think we're OK here. He'll bounce back from the trauma of talking to 'mummy,' and we'll see you two at Angelo's for dinner?"

John stared at them for a minute, as if he knew something was up, then left. "Yeah. Tonight. Six. We have the sitter for three hours."

"If it takes us that long to eat, there's something seriously wrong with us," Sherlock gasped out.

"People like to socialize, Sherlock. There's going to be talking and drinking in addition to dinner," Molly told him. It would be fine. It was just Mary and John.

"You'll survive it," John promised. "And it's Angelo's. What's the worst that could happen. Wait. Don't answer that. Molly?" He gestured to the door with his head. "Walk me out?"

Molly shrugged and followed him to the door.

John stopped just outside the threshold. Guiltily he looked down at the floor, judging what was the right thing to say. "He's really alright?"

"He will be soon. Apparently talking to his mum is a dramatic thing. And he had to do it on the phone. You know how much he hates the phone."

Sliding his hands into his pockets, he hesitated. "Right. And you'd tell me-well, I guess not. If he's playing things so close to his chest with this stuff lately."

"I know. That's the difficult part," Molly reassured him. "If it's really big, or really dangerous, I will tell you."

John nodded. "Hard to let go of the job of being his mother hen. That's all."

"I fit the role ok," Molly promised.

"Yeah… yeah. You do. See you tonight." He headed down the steps slowly.

Molly sighed in relief. Coming back into the flat, she shut the door and locked it. No more surprises for a bit. "Are you feeling any better?"

"You mean less like I want to strangle my mother?"

"Less like you're going to have a heart attack."

He was quiet for a bit, trying to analyse his own body. "Hmm. Yeah. I suppose so."

She pulled the hair tie out of her hair and ran a hand through it. "Sherlock-feeling like you're going to die isn't a regular feeling, ok? THAT is a panic attack."

"And you know this because…?"

She sat down on the arm of his chair and kissed his cheek. "Because I've been having them since I was four."

They really were more alike than not.


	11. Chapter 11

When the crate was opened (with copious amounts of noise), they found the doctor and the consulting detective snuggled together in the corner, like two lost little boys, despite the stifling heat.

They hadn't woken to the scraping and yawing of metal, and for a moment, both Mary and Lestrade feared the worst. But she shined her torch on them, and saw they were still breathing. She sighed in relief and closed her eyes, thanking every god she could think of.

She and Lestrade crouched in front of them, checking them over. "Dehydrated, a bit overheated… Where's that damned ambulance?" God, she'd been so worried.

In theory, they would probably be OK. They'd probably found them fast enough.

She put her hand on John's forehead and pulled his eyelids back. God, he didn't look good. "Love, can you wake up for me?"

Lestrade likewise tried to wake Sherlock. But with a kick. "Hey-no rest for the wicked. Come on. Get up."

"Someone needs to call Molly. She's beside herself. John...wake the hell up. This isn't funny."

zyx

Sherlock had a generalized fear about hospitals. People died in hospitals. He didn't want to die in one.

Which is why, when he woke in a hospital, he briefly thought he had died, and was now forced to haunt one for the rest of eternity. As one does.

It had only been a passing thought. Especially since consciousness didn't last long. He opened his eyes for just a second. Molly was there, and so he probably wasn't dead-dead and would just die of MRSA later or something.

A second later, he was back asleep.

"Well, he was almost awake," Molly sighed.

Mary hugged Molly supportively, then squeezed her shoulder. "Almost is a start."

Molly's shoulders still crumpled and she went back to her knitting. It was something to do. Something for her hands to do, other than wringing themselves raw. He was fine. He WOULD be fine. He was just being...stubborn. With this not-waking-up business.

John had come to fairly quickly. Sherlock was just… she didn't know. She stared at the cannula bringing oxygen to his nose, and the gauge on the wall, it was up to six percent, the highest they'd put it. She didn't know if she was actually angry with him, or just upset. Or worried. Or any of those other feelings that seemed to be so confused right now.

They were just supposed to be tying up loose ends on a case. A case that Mary had practically solved for them. They weren't supposed to disappear for two days and end up unconscious in a shipping crate. She wanted to kick him.

Swallowing that down, she forced herself to look at her knitting, not the oxygen tubing. She was making him a jumper, and she would force him to wear it. In front of people.

zyx

Mary was gone, when Sherlock woke the second time.

"Hi," Molly whispered once Sherlock looked awake enough to care that she was around. "You are one very lucky consulting detective," she said, kissing his cheek.

"Yeah? That dehydrated?" He looked at the wires and tubes.

She slid her hand under his, letting him hold her so it wouldn't hurt the IV running into his vein. "Raised core body temperature, dehydration. Exposure to natural gas. You are grounded until further notice."

He frowned. He hadn't smelt anything. Must have been natural-natural gas. Or an even bigger part of the conspiracy. He'd be looking into it further. "Natural gas?"

"Yes, be thankful it was only a minor exposure, or you both would have been on my autopsy table."

It might have explained why his brain just couldn't work out a way out of their situation. and the super cuddly talk about feelings and other things he didn't like. Blaming things on gas leaks was his new favorite excuse. "How's John?" It should have been his first question, but he'd gotten distracted by the whole gas thing.

"Fine. Better than you. Up, almost around. He's going home tonight."

"Me?"

"I need to let them know you're awake so they can look you over properly."

Sherlock groaned. "I want to go home tooooo."

She kissed his forehead. "You're going to have to get looked over if you want to go home. I think you wouldn't have been as bad off if you didn't always wear yourself into the ground on cases. Sleep wouldn't kill you. Nor would a meal or two."

"This again." He rolled his eyes.

"Yes, this again." She pressed the button for the nurse. "You know you're not immortal, right?"

"I suppose. If I must be."

She put her hand on his cheek as the nurse came in. "Yes. I know. It's terrible. But if you'd like, I'll be mortal with you."

He smiled, despite the presence of the heavy-set nurse who had started asking him question before Molly slid her hand from his cheek to make room.

zyx

Sherlock picked at his food. He should have been hungry, he hadn't really gone in for the hospital food, but it just didn't look appetizing.

"If you don't eat that, we're both going to be in trouble," John noted.

He poked at the noodles. "You could eat half and make it look like I ate-no. Ok." The look on John's face was enough to tell Sherlock that that plan was straight out. "Are you grounded too?" he asked, an annoyed arch to his eyebrow.

"Grounded? I was told I was on a very short leash. And that that leash was actually a chain. And it was bolted to the wall of our flat."

"I didn't know Mary was into that sort of thing," Sherlock smirked.

"Oh shut up." He pushed the plate closer to Sherlock. "Eat your damned food before we both get in trouble."

His shoulders slumped as he leaned over the table just a bit further. "Do you remember a time in the not-too-distant-past where we didn't answer to anyone, and if we wanted to get shot at or kidnapped or nearly beheaded, it was all fine?" He forced himself to swallow the noodles he'd twisted around his fork.

John rolled his eyes, putting one foot up on the coffee table. He liked the new one better. It was a better height for using inappropriately as an ottoman. "Were we ever? We'd just have Mrs. Hudson in here telling us off."

"Oh yeah. I used to tune her out a lot. She might have been yelling about my behavior or the bins or who knew what, I didn't know."

Smirking, John remembered old times. "Yeah. She was yelling at us for being stupid."

"Oh. Ok. I believe you." He swallowed another twisted up ball of noodles, practically whole. The sauce was ok. It was the noodles themselves that he found annoying. "But isn't it somehow worse now that we're attached?"

"We did almost die of a combination of dehydration, overheating and gas exposure. I think our respective partners are bound to be just a teency bit annoyed with us. Me more than you."

"Why do you think that? I mean, when I got home from the hospital yesterday, Molly was back to twisting my ear. Literally. I was afraid it was going to come off."

John rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes. Your precious ears. In case you have not noticed, I have a tiny child at home who would rather have her daddy in one piece. And a wife who will tear me into pieces if I worry her like that again."

Sherlock swallowed another mouthful of unchewed noodles. "I mentioned you leaving behind a grieving widow and child. See, I remembered them when we thought we were going to die."

John squinted at him. "Why am I even friends with you?"

"No one else would ever have us?" Sherlock only gave half a shrug.

"Fair point. Finish your goddamned noodles."

zyx

"We really don't have to go this weekend. I was only recently almost killed," Sherlock plead as Molly tossed his bag of toiletries at him. "You're being mean! I almost died!" he declared in a mock-scandalized voice.

"Look at it as… getting this over-with." They'd already put it off twice already. Now mummy was calling Molly. At work. "We'll show up late today and leave early tomorrow."

He looked at the clothes she had set on the bed for him. "That's still close to twenty-four hours. That's forever in mummy-years."

"The woman must be a saint," Molly muttered.

Sherlock's head snapped up. "WHAT?"

Molly shrugged. "Well, first, she pushed YOUR over-inflated head out of her body. Which demands respect. And then she let you and your brother grow up. There's a reason why rats eat their young. You and your brother are two prime examples of those reasons."

"I almost died recently!" he tried again.

She folded a hand-made jumper and put it in her own overnight bag. "Look, I'm going to be there the whole time. If she starts giving you a panic attack, I will step in and distract her."

He picked out a proper shirt to take with him and set the other choices on the chair in the corner. "Thanks. I think."

"Let's just get it over-with, ok? And look on the bright side. All of my family's dead!" she said too cheerfully with a smile. "No, sorry. Let me try that again. "I don't have anyone to introduce you to, so there's no pressure on my side. I just have to prove to your parents that I'm… I don't know." She had absolutely no idea what his parents wanted or expected for their son.

"No I think you had the right tone the first time," he said calmly.

"Hooray for cancer, then," she said smartly. "Do we get to stay in your childhood bed, or did they turn it into a sewing room?"

Sherlock's face scrunched and he tried to remember. "I haven't been upstairs in years. They could have turned the whole first floor into a disco for all I know." He did his best not to stay long. "But yes, my childhood bedroom was still in-tact, the last time I checked. All of my 'achievements' and foolish tastes on display for the world to see."

"Sherlock. It's just a childhood bedroom. Everyone liked silly things as a child. I used to run around with a broom pretending I was a warrior princess. It's all fine." Taking the shirt from him to pack, she kissed his cheek. "I'd like a look into who you were as a child."

"I was dreadful. That's all you need to know. Or better yet, ask Mycroft. He'll give you the full and unadulterated truth about his idiot brother."

Molly laughed. "If it makes you feel any better, my father would have to walk me to the front door of the school because as soon as I was old enough to figure it out, I started skipping school. Then he'd kiss me goodbye." Her face scrunched. "Life at school was bad enough that I'd rather skip and walk around in the cold all day until the bus finally came, but then he was kissing me on the cheek in some big show in front of the other kids and parents."

Sherlock winced. "Ouch. That's… not good."

"Yeah. I'd hide in the woods near the school reading until the day ended. Finally the school called my father to see if I was sick or withdrawing or who knows what."

Choosing a pair of socks, Sherlock looked up. "How long did you get away with it?"

"A month and a half." She smiled fondly at the memory. "It wasn't all bad, getting driven to school. It gave me time with my father I wouldn't have had otherwise, in retrospect. Still. School was more than a little awful."

Sherlock nodded. "That I can agree with."

"So I promise. Nothing's going to put me off, ok?"

zyx

Fortunately, Molly had said nothing. Not 'no one.' It wasn't that Mrs. Holmes was horrible or anything like that. She was just… intense. Really really intense. When Sherlock's mother took her coat, it was an instant babble of talk. How was the trip, did Sherlock behave in the car? He never behaved in the car as a child. Sherlock didn't learn to drive until he was nearly twenty-one, and refused to let us teach him. Do you drive, dear?

And that was all before Molly had her left arm out of her coat.

Mr. Holmes stood quietly in the doorway to the kitchen, leaning against the frame with a small smile of utter bemusement on his face. It was easy to tell he was totally taken with her, even after all these years.

Sherlock pinched the bridge of his nose when mummy turned her questions to him. Did he behave himself in the car? He really should have called when he ended up in the hospital. She had to hear it from Mycroft, and wasn't that completely dreadful that he didn't even call his mother…

"I need a glass of water," he said firmly and practically pushed past his father into the kitchen.

Molly shrugged and winced. "It sort of got away from us. Sorry."

"Oh I don't blame you, dear. I completely blame that son of mine. Neither of them can call home for anything they moved out and it's like I don't exist any more to them…Oh my. Sit down, sit down." She turned to her husband. "Something to drink for Ms. Hooper?"

He went off into the kitchen, and Molly was left alone. With Sherlock's mother. "So, um… hi…" She blushed. She'd practiced what she'd intended to say, and it had still not worked. First impressions were important and Molly seemed to be endlessly poor with them.

"Why don't you tell me about yourself, dear? Sherlock hasn't told me a single thing, of course. You two look lovely together by the way…"

Oh god. No wonder Sherlock had panic attacks. She felt one coming on right now. "Um… well, I'm a pathologist."

Mummy leaned forward on the sofa. "Oh that sounds interesting. Is that how you met my boy? Do you work on many cases together?"

Molly smiled, even though she could feel her heart pounding and her fight or flight response was leaning toward flight. "Um… I help out, occasionally. I don't like leaving the morgue. So, uh… he visits me, mostly."

"Aww, isn't that sweet. Did you hear that dear? He visits her at work!"

"It's not really… romantic or anything. Usually he's asking about toxicology reports or stomach contents. Once I found a lead shard deep in a victim's amygdala. That was interesting. He'd been acting strange and out of control before the police beat him to death, which was a shame because it was a medical issue and not-she looked down. "Oh. Sorry. Most people don't like to hear about what I do." She forgot. She got excited about half-digested snails and congenital heart defects. Other people… not so much.

"Oh no no, it sounds quite interesting. So you… dissect them. The dead bodies?"

She nodded. "Um… they're not all murder victims. Car wrecks, hospital deaths, natural causes. I did have one fellow who had the entire steering column puncture his chest because he turned off the airbag system in his car. And a fellow impaled by his own tire iron…" she blushed again.

The woman tossed her hands up the air in excitement. "Oh my. You should write a book. No wonder you get on so well with my Sherlock." She looked behind her. "Dear, drinks?" she shouted it authoritatively.

"Water only boils so fast," her husband called back calmly.

"And where's that son of mine. Sherlock, surely it doesn't take that long to get a glass of water."

"Talking to dad!" he shouted back.

The woman was a force of nature and Molly dreaded ever getting in her way. Twenty more hours. Twenty more hours and they could leave. And Sherlock had abandoned her in the sitting room, in front of the fire place with his mother. Fantastic.

"I'm not the writer type," she said, trying to direct the conversation away from shouting back and forth. "I leave that up to John. I heard a publisher offered him a book deal for expanded versions of the blog posts. I don't know if he's going to accept it. But I hope so."

"How ARE he and Mary doing? I haven't even had a chance to see the baby. She was half ready to pop last time she was here. Well, seven and a half months. Maybe eight. But it looked like the baby had dropped. Was it a girl or a boy? When it drops early, it's usually a boy. Did she go back to work? I didn't go back to work. I was too wrapped up in my boys to even think about it. And I worked with dreadful people, so I wrote a few engineering books while the boys were asleep or playing and I was fine with it. Just never publish under your own name. If they know you're a woman no publisher will take it, if it's a science book. You'd think we'd have gotten over that by now, but apparently not. John should take the contract. My engineering and mechanics book was used as a textbook for a few years and the royalties were nice. Paid for the kitchen renovation, it did."

Molly just listened with wide eyes. Was she supposed to speak? Was she supposed to interrupt? How did this work? She had never been in the conversational equivalent of a hurricane before. Quite frankly, she was terrified.

"You could probably write a few text books. Those aren't hard. Hire out the illustrations though. They're hardly worth time. That's where the money is. Get it into some university program and make some updates every few years… They're expensive as hell, too. Let me tell you how much Mycroft's books cost…

Blinking rapidly, Molly searched for some sort of escape. "Oh, it's ok. I know how much it costs. Medical training is not easy on the budget." There. She'd dodged… things. "John and Mary are doing well. The baby's a year old now. Always into everything, shows no signs of slowing down."

"Oh that was Sherlock. Couldn't keep anything hidden or locked up. He had way too many close calls with chemicals under the sink. And Mycroft was hardly an angel, but he was a sight better than Sherlock. But no one could keep him out of trouble. Why one time, he took one of my good meat carving knives and decided to dissect the neighbor's dead-"

Sherlock suddenly appeared in the doorway. "Mother, we are not talking about Pete the Peacock."

Molly giggled.

"Don't encourage her. It was one large fowl and I never did it again."

"That I know of. He and his brother used to get into the most ghastly circumstances, didn't you, Sherlock? Still, only had to send the police out looking for you the once…"

Sherlock closed his eyes, trying to practice his deep breathing technique without his mother noticing.

"Well, either way… you have a lovely home. How long have you been living here?" Molly tried to turn it the other way. Maybe if Mrs. Holmes was being asked questions, she would be less inclined to grill them. "Oh since the first book sold. Couldn't stand London any more. Or those unappreciative arseholes in my department. Decode this, sort that, and not even a thank you. I was smarter than half of those men, and they knew it. So when the book sold, I told them to faff off, good luck with the cyphers, and that they were welcome to fight the cold war on their own. But by then I was pregnant with Mycroft, so I really wasn't much worried about their stupid cyphers and interoffice politics. What about you, love? Plans for children?" She looked from Molly to Sherlock. "Your father and I would like grand children before we're too old to enjoy them, you know."

Molly smiled tightly. It really wasn't anyone's business.

"Quit bothering Molly about children. We both happen to be quite career oriented individuals at the moment-"

"Oh Sherlock, it all changes when you have children. You change. You'll mellow out a bit and see the world differently. Look at how the cold war turned out. They didn't need me at all, really. Crime in London will hang around and wait for you on weekend."

Sherlock clenched his jaw and was holding his breath. Molly could tell because he was getting a little purple around the eyes. She stood up and took his hand. "Don't worry, Mrs. Holmes. Should we choose to procreate, you will be the first to know." She smiled up at Sherlock. "I think you promised to show me your old room?"

"Oh yes his old room, we left everything…"

Sherlock retreated up the steps, hand clutching Molly's tightly as he dragged her along. His mother was still going on about something, even as he opened the door to his room, pulled her inside, then shut and locked it. "Nineteen hours and forty minutes," he sighed in exhaustion.

"Breathe," she reminded him.

"Me breathe? YOU breathe." He threw himself on his old bed, the dark duvet crumpling beneath him. "You look about as wonderful as I feel."

Molly curled up next to him on the bed. "I feel like I am going to vomit," she told him truthfully. "And have a heart attack. And an aneurysm. All at once. If that happens, you're still grounded."

He slid his arms around her. "My mother isn't even tolerable in small doses."

"Why didn't you tell me she was… I don't know. Ray-gun intense? If her powers were directed into a fine point laser beam she could blow up the moon." She relaxed her head against his chest. "Also, you were such a little punk," she said, glancing around the room, the darkly painted walls. The ultra violet light. The faint odor of marijuana and cigarette smoke lingering in the space. "It's adorable." Her stomach stopped twisting quite as badly, now that she had something else to focus on. "I, um… had more stuffed animals than I do now. And my room was painted a sedate, calming aquamarine. I went through a mermaid phase."

"A mermaid phase?" He kissed her forehead. "I'd like to have seen that."

"The mermaid and the goth fall in love despite all odds?" she asked with half a smile.

He squeezed her tighter. "It probably ends badly. The goth kid is into self-harm and longs for death so drowns himself thinking it will bringing him closer to the love of his life. He dies and she is left alone."

She frowned. That wasn't her version of the fairy tale at all. "Well, aren't you cheerful."

"My mother does that to me."

"Turns your happy endings into maudlin suicide tales?"

"Something like that."

They held onto each other for dear life as the afternoon light faded and the room was left in a dark blue glow.


	12. Chapter 12

When the crate was opened (with copious amounts of noise), they found the doctor and the consulting detective snuggled together in the corner, like two lost little boys, despite the stifling heat.

They hadn't woken to the scraping and yawing of metal, and for a moment, both Mary and Lestrade feared the worst. But she shined her torch on them, and saw they were still breathing. She sighed in relief and closed her eyes, thanking every god she could think of.

She and Lestrade crouched in front of them, checking them over. "Dehydrated, a bit overheated… Where's that damned ambulance?" God, she'd been so worried.

In theory, they would probably be OK. They'd probably found them fast enough.

She put her hand on John's forehead and pulled his eyelids back. God, he didn't look good. "Love, can you wake up for me?"

Lestrade likewise tried to wake Sherlock. But with a kick. "Hey-no rest for the wicked. Come on. Get up."

"Someone needs to call Molly. She's beside herself. John...wake the hell up. This isn't funny."

zyx

Sherlock had a generalized fear about hospitals. People died in hospitals. He didn't want to die in one.

Which is why, when he woke in a hospital, he briefly thought he had died, and was now forced to haunt one for the rest of eternity. As one does.

It had only been a passing thought. Especially since consciousness didn't last long. He opened his eyes for just a second. Molly was there, and so he probably wasn't dead-dead and would just die of MRSA later or something.

A second later, he was back asleep.

"Well, he was almost awake," Molly sighed.

Mary hugged Molly supportively, then squeezed her shoulder. "Almost is a start."

Molly's shoulders still crumpled and she went back to her knitting. It was something to do. Something for her hands to do, other than wringing themselves raw. He was fine. He WOULD be fine. He was just being...stubborn. With this not-waking-up business.

John had come to fairly quickly. Sherlock was just… she didn't know. She stared at the cannula bringing oxygen to his nose, and the gauge on the wall, it was up to six percent, the highest they'd put it. She didn't know if she was actually angry with him, or just upset. Or worried. Or any of those other feelings that seemed to be so confused right now.

They were just supposed to be tying up loose ends on a case. A case that Mary had practically solved for them. They weren't supposed to disappear for two days and end up unconscious in a shipping crate. She wanted to kick him.

Swallowing that down, she forced herself to look at her knitting, not the oxygen tubing. She was making him a jumper, and she would force him to wear it. In front of people.

zyx

Mary was gone, when Sherlock woke the second time.

"Hi," Molly whispered once Sherlock looked awake enough to care that she was around. "You are one very lucky consulting detective," she said, kissing his cheek.

"Yeah? That dehydrated?" He looked at the wires and tubes.

She slid her hand under his, letting him hold her so it wouldn't hurt the IV running into his vein. "Raised core body temperature, dehydration. Exposure to natural gas. You are grounded until further notice."

He frowned. He hadn't smelt anything. Must have been natural-natural gas. Or an even bigger part of the conspiracy. He'd be looking into it further. "Natural gas?"

"Yes, be thankful it was only a minor exposure, or you both would have been on my autopsy table."

It might have explained why his brain just couldn't work out a way out of their situation. and the super cuddly talk about feelings and other things he didn't like. Blaming things on gas leaks was his new favorite excuse. "How's John?" It should have been his first question, but he'd gotten distracted by the whole gas thing.

"Fine. Better than you. Up, almost around. He's going home tonight."

"Me?"

"I need to let them know you're awake so they can look you over properly."

Sherlock groaned. "I want to go home tooooo."

She kissed his forehead. "You're going to have to get looked over if you want to go home. I think you wouldn't have been as bad off if you didn't always wear yourself into the ground on cases. Sleep wouldn't kill you. Nor would a meal or two."

"This again." He rolled his eyes.

"Yes, this again." She pressed the button for the nurse. "You know you're not immortal, right?"

"I suppose. If I must be."

She put her hand on his cheek as the nurse came in. "Yes. I know. It's terrible. But if you'd like, I'll be mortal with you."

He smiled, despite the presence of the heavy-set nurse who had started asking him question before Molly slid her hand from his cheek to make room.

zyx

Sherlock picked at his food. He should have been hungry, he hadn't really gone in for the hospital food, but it just didn't look appetizing.

"If you don't eat that, we're both going to be in trouble," John noted.

He poked at the noodles. "You could eat half and make it look like I ate-no. Ok." The look on John's face was enough to tell Sherlock that that plan was straight out. "Are you grounded too?" he asked, an annoyed arch to his eyebrow.

"Grounded? I was told I was on a very short leash. And that that leash was actually a chain. And it was bolted to the wall of our flat."

"I didn't know Mary was into that sort of thing," Sherlock smirked.

"Oh shut up." He pushed the plate closer to Sherlock. "Eat your damned food before we both get in trouble."

His shoulders slumped as he leaned over the table just a bit further. "Do you remember a time in the not-too-distant-past where we didn't answer to anyone, and if we wanted to get shot at or kidnapped or nearly beheaded, it was all fine?" He forced himself to swallow the noodles he'd twisted around his fork.

John rolled his eyes, putting one foot up on the coffee table. He liked the new one better. It was a better height for using inappropriately as an ottoman. "Were we ever? We'd just have Mrs. Hudson in here telling us off."

"Oh yeah. I used to tune her out a lot. She might have been yelling about my behavior or the bins or who knew what, I didn't know."

Smirking, John remembered old times. "Yeah. She was yelling at us for being stupid."

"Oh. Ok. I believe you." He swallowed another twisted up ball of noodles, practically whole. The sauce was ok. It was the noodles themselves that he found annoying. "But isn't it somehow worse now that we're attached?"

"We did almost die of a combination of dehydration, overheating and gas exposure. I think our respective partners are bound to be just a teency bit annoyed with us. Me more than you."

"Why do you think that? I mean, when I got home from the hospital yesterday, Molly was back to twisting my ear. Literally. I was afraid it was going to come off."

John rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes. Your precious ears. In case you have not noticed, I have a tiny child at home who would rather have her daddy in one piece. And a wife who will tear me into pieces if I worry her like that again."

Sherlock swallowed another mouthful of unchewed noodles. "I mentioned you leaving behind a grieving widow and child. See, I remembered them when we thought we were going to die."

John squinted at him. "Why am I even friends with you?"

"No one else would ever have us?" Sherlock only gave half a shrug.

"Fair point. Finish your goddamned noodles."

zyx

"We really don't have to go this weekend. I was only recently almost killed," Sherlock plead as Molly tossed his bag of toiletries at him. "You're being mean! I almost died!" he declared in a mock-scandalized voice.

"Look at it as… getting this over-with." They'd already put it off twice already. Now mummy was calling Molly. At work. "We'll show up late today and leave early tomorrow."

He looked at the clothes she had set on the bed for him. "That's still close to twenty-four hours. That's forever in mummy-years."

"The woman must be a saint," Molly muttered.

Sherlock's head snapped up. "WHAT?"

Molly shrugged. "Well, first, she pushed YOUR over-inflated head out of her body. Which demands respect. And then she let you and your brother grow up. There's a reason why rats eat their young. You and your brother are two prime examples of those reasons."

"I almost died recently!" he tried again.

She folded a hand-made jumper and put it in her own overnight bag. "Look, I'm going to be there the whole time. If she starts giving you a panic attack, I will step in and distract her."

He picked out a proper shirt to take with him and set the other choices on the chair in the corner. "Thanks. I think."

"Let's just get it over-with, ok? And look on the bright side. All of my family's dead!" she said too cheerfully with a smile. "No, sorry. Let me try that again. "I don't have anyone to introduce you to, so there's no pressure on my side. I just have to prove to your parents that I'm… I don't know." She had absolutely no idea what his parents wanted or expected for their son.

"No I think you had the right tone the first time," he said calmly.

"Hooray for cancer, then," she said smartly. "Do we get to stay in your childhood bed, or did they turn it into a sewing room?"

Sherlock's face scrunched and he tried to remember. "I haven't been upstairs in years. They could have turned the whole first floor into a disco for all I know." He did his best not to stay long. "But yes, my childhood bedroom was still in-tact, the last time I checked. All of my 'achievements' and foolish tastes on display for the world to see."

"Sherlock. It's just a childhood bedroom. Everyone liked silly things as a child. I used to run around with a broom pretending I was a warrior princess. It's all fine." Taking the shirt from him to pack, she kissed his cheek. "I'd like a look into who you were as a child."

"I was dreadful. That's all you need to know. Or better yet, ask Mycroft. He'll give you the full and unadulterated truth about his idiot brother."

Molly laughed. "If it makes you feel any better, my father would have to walk me to the front door of the school because as soon as I was old enough to figure it out, I started skipping school. Then he'd kiss me goodbye." Her face scrunched. "Life at school was bad enough that I'd rather skip and walk around in the cold all day until the bus finally came, but then he was kissing me on the cheek in some big show in front of the other kids and parents."

Sherlock winced. "Ouch. That's… not good."

"Yeah. I'd hide in the woods near the school reading until the day ended. Finally the school called my father to see if I was sick or withdrawing or who knows what."

Choosing a pair of socks, Sherlock looked up. "How long did you get away with it?"

"A month and a half." She smiled fondly at the memory. "It wasn't all bad, getting driven to school. It gave me time with my father I wouldn't have had otherwise, in retrospect. Still. School was more than a little awful."

Sherlock nodded. "That I can agree with."

"So I promise. Nothing's going to put me off, ok?"

zyx

Fortunately, Molly had said nothing. Not 'no one.' It wasn't that Mrs. Holmes was horrible or anything like that. She was just… intense. Really really intense. When Sherlock's mother took her coat, it was an instant babble of talk. How was the trip, did Sherlock behave in the car? He never behaved in the car as a child. Sherlock didn't learn to drive until he was nearly twenty-one, and refused to let us teach him. Do you drive, dear?

And that was all before Molly had her left arm out of her coat.

Mr. Holmes stood quietly in the doorway to the kitchen, leaning against the frame with a small smile of utter bemusement on his face. It was easy to tell he was totally taken with her, even after all these years.

Sherlock pinched the bridge of his nose when mummy turned her questions to him. Did he behave himself in the car? He really should have called when he ended up in the hospital. She had to hear it from Mycroft, and wasn't that completely dreadful that he didn't even call his mother…

"I need a glass of water," he said firmly and practically pushed past his father into the kitchen.

Molly shrugged and winced. "It sort of got away from us. Sorry."

"Oh I don't blame you, dear. I completely blame that son of mine. Neither of them can call home for anything they moved out and it's like I don't exist any more to them…Oh my. Sit down, sit down." She turned to her husband. "Something to drink for Ms. Hooper?"

He went off into the kitchen, and Molly was left alone. With Sherlock's mother. "So, um… hi…" She blushed. She'd practiced what she'd intended to say, and it had still not worked. First impressions were important and Molly seemed to be endlessly poor with them.

"Why don't you tell me about yourself, dear? Sherlock hasn't told me a single thing, of course. You two look lovely together by the way…"

Oh god. No wonder Sherlock had panic attacks. She felt one coming on right now. "Um… well, I'm a pathologist."

Mummy leaned forward on the sofa. "Oh that sounds interesting. Is that how you met my boy? Do you work on many cases together?"

Molly smiled, even though she could feel her heart pounding and her fight or flight response was leaning toward flight. "Um… I help out, occasionally. I don't like leaving the morgue. So, uh… he visits me, mostly."

"Aww, isn't that sweet. Did you hear that dear? He visits her at work!"

"It's not really… romantic or anything. Usually he's asking about toxicology reports or stomach contents. Once I found a lead shard deep in a victim's amygdala. That was interesting. He'd been acting strange and out of control before the police beat him to death, which was a shame because it was a medical issue and not-she looked down. "Oh. Sorry. Most people don't like to hear about what I do." She forgot. She got excited about half-digested snails and congenital heart defects. Other people… not so much.

"Oh no no, it sounds quite interesting. So you… dissect them. The dead bodies?"

She nodded. "Um… they're not all murder victims. Car wrecks, hospital deaths, natural causes. I did have one fellow who had the entire steering column puncture his chest because he turned off the airbag system in his car. And a fellow impaled by his own tire iron…" she blushed again.

The woman tossed her hands up the air in excitement. "Oh my. You should write a book. No wonder you get on so well with my Sherlock." She looked behind her. "Dear, drinks?" she shouted it authoritatively.

"Water only boils so fast," her husband called back calmly.

"And where's that son of mine. Sherlock, surely it doesn't take that long to get a glass of water."

"Talking to dad!" he shouted back.

The woman was a force of nature and Molly dreaded ever getting in her way. Twenty more hours. Twenty more hours and they could leave. And Sherlock had abandoned her in the sitting room, in front of the fire place with his mother. Fantastic.

"I'm not the writer type," she said, trying to direct the conversation away from shouting back and forth. "I leave that up to John. I heard a publisher offered him a book deal for expanded versions of the blog posts. I don't know if he's going to accept it. But I hope so."

"How ARE he and Mary doing? I haven't even had a chance to see the baby. She was half ready to pop last time she was here. Well, seven and a half months. Maybe eight. But it looked like the baby had dropped. Was it a girl or a boy? When it drops early, it's usually a boy. Did she go back to work? I didn't go back to work. I was too wrapped up in my boys to even think about it. And I worked with dreadful people, so I wrote a few engineering books while the boys were asleep or playing and I was fine with it. Just never publish under your own name. If they know you're a woman no publisher will take it, if it's a science book. You'd think we'd have gotten over that by now, but apparently not. John should take the contract. My engineering and mechanics book was used as a textbook for a few years and the royalties were nice. Paid for the kitchen renovation, it did."

Molly just listened with wide eyes. Was she supposed to speak? Was she supposed to interrupt? How did this work? She had never been in the conversational equivalent of a hurricane before. Quite frankly, she was terrified.

"You could probably write a few text books. Those aren't hard. Hire out the illustrations though. They're hardly worth time. That's where the money is. Get it into some university program and make some updates every few years… They're expensive as hell, too. Let me tell you how much Mycroft's books cost…

Blinking rapidly, Molly searched for some sort of escape. "Oh, it's ok. I know how much it costs. Medical training is not easy on the budget." There. She'd dodged… things. "John and Mary are doing well. The baby's a year old now. Always into everything, shows no signs of slowing down."

"Oh that was Sherlock. Couldn't keep anything hidden or locked up. He had way too many close calls with chemicals under the sink. And Mycroft was hardly an angel, but he was a sight better than Sherlock. But no one could keep him out of trouble. Why one time, he took one of my good meat carving knives and decided to dissect the neighbor's dead-"

Sherlock suddenly appeared in the doorway. "Mother, we are not talking about Pete the Peacock."

Molly giggled.

"Don't encourage her. It was one large fowl and I never did it again."

"That I know of. He and his brother used to get into the most ghastly circumstances, didn't you, Sherlock? Still, only had to send the police out looking for you the once…"

Sherlock closed his eyes, trying to practice his deep breathing technique without his mother noticing.

"Well, either way… you have a lovely home. How long have you been living here?" Molly tried to turn it the other way. Maybe if Mrs. Holmes was being asked questions, she would be less inclined to grill them. "Oh since the first book sold. Couldn't stand London any more. Or those unappreciative arseholes in my department. Decode this, sort that, and not even a thank you. I was smarter than half of those men, and they knew it. So when the book sold, I told them to faff off, good luck with the cyphers, and that they were welcome to fight the cold war on their own. But by then I was pregnant with Mycroft, so I really wasn't much worried about their stupid cyphers and interoffice politics. What about you, love? Plans for children?" She looked from Molly to Sherlock. "Your father and I would like grand children before we're too old to enjoy them, you know."

Molly smiled tightly. It really wasn't anyone's business.

"Quit bothering Molly about children. We both happen to be quite career oriented individuals at the moment-"

"Oh Sherlock, it all changes when you have children. You change. You'll mellow out a bit and see the world differently. Look at how the cold war turned out. They didn't need me at all, really. Crime in London will hang around and wait for you on weekend."

Sherlock clenched his jaw and was holding his breath. Molly could tell because he was getting a little purple around the eyes. She stood up and took his hand. "Don't worry, Mrs. Holmes. Should we choose to procreate, you will be the first to know." She smiled up at Sherlock. "I think you promised to show me your old room?"

"Oh yes his old room, we left everything…"

Sherlock retreated up the steps, hand clutching Molly's tightly as he dragged her along. His mother was still going on about something, even as he opened the door to his room, pulled her inside, then shut and locked it. "Nineteen hours and forty minutes," he sighed in exhaustion.

"Breathe," she reminded him.

"Me breathe? YOU breathe." He threw himself on his old bed, the dark duvet crumpling beneath him. "You look about as wonderful as I feel."

Molly curled up next to him on the bed. "I feel like I am going to vomit," she told him truthfully. "And have a heart attack. And an aneurysm. All at once. If that happens, you're still grounded."

He slid his arms around her. "My mother isn't even tolerable in small doses."

"Why didn't you tell me she was… I don't know. Ray-gun intense? If her powers were directed into a fine point laser beam she could blow up the moon." She relaxed her head against his chest. "Also, you were such a little punk," she said, glancing around the room, the darkly painted walls. The ultra violet light. The faint odor of marijuana and cigarette smoke lingering in the space. "It's adorable." Her stomach stopped twisting quite as badly, now that she had something else to focus on. "I, um… had more stuffed animals than I do now. And my room was painted a sedate, calming aquamarine. I went through a mermaid phase."

"A mermaid phase?" He kissed her forehead. "I'd like to have seen that."

"The mermaid and the goth fall in love despite all odds?" she asked with half a smile.

He squeezed her tighter. "It probably ends badly. The goth kid is into self-harm and longs for death so drowns himself thinking it will bringing him closer to the love of his life. He dies and she is left alone."

She frowned. That wasn't her version of the fairy tale at all. "Well, aren't you cheerful."

"My mother does that to me."

"Turns your happy endings into maudlin suicide tales?"

"Something like that."

They held onto each other for dear life as the afternoon light faded and the room was left in a dark blue glow.


	13. Chapter 13

They'd both drifted off, possibly their brain's natural need to reset after such an intense assault on the senses. They both snapped awake like they were falling out of a tree when Sherlock's mother called them for dinner.

"Ok. Are we ready to do this?" Molly asked.

Sherlock sat up. "What actual choice do we have?"

His mother called them again, this time from the kitchen. It was distant and they could barely make it out.

"We could fake our own deaths."

"I've already done that once. She knows how to spot a fake now."

Molly slid off the bed with a sigh. "I can do this. I am an adult. I eat dinner with strangers for work, and I can smile and be nice, and say please and thank you." She tugged down her jumper and smoothed out her hair. "Ok. I can do this."

Sherlock straightened out his collar, but he still looked wrinkled. "Positive affirmations?"

"I don't know how YOU deal with these things. This is what I do."

"Usually I just openly mock them. My mother doesn't get it, and my father just sits there with an amused look on his face. They like Mycroft better anyhow."

Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, Molly opened the door. "We can do this, we are grownups, and we can have dinner and make smalltalk. Well, I can. Maybe you should stick to yes or no answers."

zyx

"And then I said to your father, 'no dear, just because it's called iceberg lettuce, that doesn't mean you can put it in the freezer."

His father chuckled. "Waste of six perfectly good heads of lettuce. But at least I hadn't lost my keys for two weeks because I left them in the utensil drawer. She kept looking at them, too. For two weeks. And not realizing they were her keys."

Sherlock nodded with wide eyes. Molly knew this was killing him slowly.

"Sherlock does the same thing, don't you, dear? Leaving things places."

Molly smiled tightly. "We look out for each other." Though she had threatened to staple his keys to his hand once. But just the once.

"Isn't that sweet? I knew that's all Sherlock needed, someone to look after him properly."

Sherlock put down his fork and pinched the bridge of his nose. "This was not a handoff. We did not pass responsibility of me from you to Molly."

"Of course not. John was in the middle there somewhere," she said fondly. "I thought for the longest time you'd just come out and get it over with. I was disappointed when he got engaged to that Mary girl, but look at them-nice family. And you have Molly, so I can have grandchildren, so it all worked out."

Molly's lips set together, and under the table her nails dug into Sherlock's leg. This talk about grandchildren was going to make her lose it. And when Molly Hooper finally lost it, it wasn't pretty.

"I think you're going to have to pin your hopes for grandchildren on Mycroft," Sherlock said smartly. "In other words: don't hold your breath. He doesn't like to go swimming with the goldfish."

Mummy cocked her head. "Is that what they're calling it now? I can't keep up with the lingo. Either way, I'm sure you two will settle down and it will be nice. And women go back to work now days, afterward. So I suppose you could do that. If you really like messing about with dead bodies all day. I'm sure playing with corpses is MUCH better than trying to end the cold war…"

Molly put down her napkin and stood up. "Excuse me."

As fast as she could dodge the furniture in the kitchen, she vacated and headed toward the tiny wash closet just between it and the sun room. Locking the door, she slid down the wall and held onto her stomach, ordering dinner to stay put.

Which was really all the incentive her stomach needed to rebel against her. She heaved and heaved into the toilet, well past the point of actually bringing anything up.

"Is everything alright in there, dear?" Mrs. Holmes asked.

"Of course it isn't alright. She's just vomited up her intestines. Molly?"

She collapsed against the wall again, head pounding and exhausted. "Just-just give me a minute?"

There was some muted bickering on the other side of the door which she tried to block out. This was worse than vomiting up nothing for fifteen minutes in a public restroom because she was absolutely sure, in her mind, that she'd failed an oral exam because she'd stumbled over everything she'd meant to say.

"She's NOT pregnant," Sherlock shouted at his mother. That bit she'd heard.

"Well, how would you know, dear? She may not even know yet. But I've been pregnant more often than you, so I think I know a thing-"

"Mother, trust me. She is not pregnant. Go… get her some toast or something. Now. Go. Goodbye. Thank you" His mother tried to say something. "No, really. Goodbye."

Molly drooped further against the wall in relief.

"She's gone. Can you open the door?"

"No," Molly told him honestly. Moving really wasn't her… thing right now.

She heard some fiddling on the other side, and then the door opened. Somewhere in the distance Sherlock's father was asking his mother why they couldn't have just been left to figure it out on their own. because apparently there was no magic left in the world any more.

Moving around in the tiny space, Sherlock locked the door again. "You look a little dreadful."

"I feel a little dreadful."

"John can't figure out why I don't visit more often." He closed the toilet lid and sat on it. "So. Here's my escape plan."

She smiled, exhausted. "You have an escape plan."

"I always have an escape plan," he promised. "At Christmas year before last I drugged everybody and shot a blackmailer."

She giggled, which made her stomach ache more. "Shh, don't make me laugh."

"The plan: I put you to bed. Stay with you as long as is respectable, come down here, endure more of their pedantic banter, say I want to call it an evening so that I can check on you, and then after they go to bed, we sneak out in the middle of the night."

Molly put her head against his knee. "I love you so much right now."

"Oh I know." He put his hand on her head. "Because I am the man with the plan."

She closed her eyes and nodded. There were other reasons too, but this was good for now.

zyx

"I can't even explain how dreadful it was."

Mary frowned, putting down her teacup. "Up until Sherlock drugged us all, I was having a nice time. Well, as long as I wasn't in the same room as Mycroft. That man is a vampire. He just sucks all the joy out of every room he enters. I don't think he'd know fun if it came up and bit him in the arse. But I think with more of us there the attention was spread out. Instead it was focused on you and your uterus."

The exaggerated phrasing made Molly smile. The focus on her uterus, as Mary put it, had been awful. Mrs. Holmes talking a mile a minute had been dreadful. Everything had been horrible. "Why does everyone CARE so deeply about it?" She sighed.

Shrugging, Mary picked her cup up again. "I don't know. When I was pregnant, do you want to know how many total strangers came up and touched my stomach? Like it was public property?" She shook her head. "A lot. A whole lot. Even John was skeeved out by it."

Billie, just learning to walk, toddled over with the skull. Molly covered her eyes.

"What are you doing with that? Give to mummy…" Mary tried to take it, but the baby whined.

"Skully!" she moaned and started crying. "SKULLY!" She made tiny grabby hands toward the skull.

Mary got the skull from her child and stared at it. "Oh my god. Sherlock's been letting her play with it, hasn't he?"

Molly looked away.

"And you LET him." She set the skull behind her on the sofa, out of the baby's reach, then picked up her child to soothe her. "You were afraid I'd scar an infant bringing her into the morgue. You're letting my daughter play Hamlet with a real actual human skull."

"See, this is why Sherlock and I shouldn't be parents." It was pretty much conclusive proof, as far as Molly was concerned.

"I'm not saying you should or shouldn't. But don't give MY child human skulls. PLEASE."

Molly was certain this was not a request normal people made in normal households. "Promise. No more skull." She sighed. "You know we love sitting her, right? Even Sherlock, despite how he acts. She's adorable and clever and listens to all of his ramblings. It's just… not for me." She felt like she had to say it to SOMEONE and be heard and understood.

"You might change your mind. You might not. Either way, it's fine," Mary soothed, rubbing her arm. "It's a lifetime commitment. and before you even have that, you are renting out bodyspace to someone who's going to crush your bladder, kick your lungs and keep you up all night tossing and turning. Oh listen to me. I just made it sound incredibly appealing, didn't I?" She laughed. "I think his mum's just grandkid-crazy. It's nothing personal. Even though it's completely personal."

Molly nodded, understanding what mary was trying to say. "We're only just starting to make progress with our… problem, you know? Anything else is ages away."

"No biological clock ticking?" Mary teased.

Molly shook her head. "I'm not sure I ever really had one to begin with."

zyx

Sherlock held the bathroom cabinet while John screwed it into place. They'd not been here but a little over a year, and Mary wanted a different cabinet and mirror in the bathroom. And John just gave into her whims. He loved her. He wanted her to be happy. He didn't want to be nagged.

And it always bothered him that all the small cabinet doors opened in the same direction.

"Oh come on, it's not that hard. Just hold it level."

Sherlock straightened it again. "YOU hold it level."

"But then I'd have to let you use the drill. And that's not happening again."

"You have to admit, it made some pretty… unique patterns in the cheese."

"Hold it still and be quiet."

Sherlock did as he was told. Mary and Molly had escaped the home renovation with the baby upstairs. He really hoped she didn't want the skull to play with. It was cute. Adorable even. Mary and John would completely not approve. That's what made it even more adorable and endearing. "You know, if Mary is so good at putting things together and electrical wiring and all of that, why isn't SHE doing this?"

"Sometimes… it's better not to ask questions." He sighed. "I don't know. Things are weird at work. The other women in the office don't like that she leaves early to pick up the sprog from care. They don't like that she's married to me. They don't like that she's now certified to do more than she was before…" He rolled his eyes. "I think she needs her time with Molly. You know. Talk to some lady who doesn't hate her."

Sherlock thought about that. "Yeah. I think Molly needs that too. I mean, not that anyone really hates Molly. But someone she can talk about… real things with." Stuff that wasn't dead body parts and platitudes to coworkers about her living arrangements.

"Well, glad they get along, then. Or that'd be a tense living situation."

Sherlock laughed. "You know this is a living situation entirely engineered by your wife. I don't think she'd have chosen someone she disliked to be my babysitter."

"Are you still not over the babysitter thing?"

"Nope. A Holmes can hold a very long grudge."

John drilled in two more screws before he broached a subject neither of them wanted to tackle. "So. I got a call from your mum."

Sherlock groaned, moving the cabinet slightly. "Remind me again why matricide is a bad thing?"

Lowering the drill, John tried to put it gently. "Well, she wants me to bring the family to visit her."

Sherlock's face twisted in disgust. "BUT." There was always something else. Mummy didn't call you unless there was a something else.

"She was prying for information about you and Molly. She's convinced Molly is pregnant. I told her I didn't know anything about it. Which, technically, I guess I don't."

Sherlock looked up at the ceiling. "Oh for godsakes. She's not pregnant. Every single last one of you has babies on the brain and it's impairing your judgement. Matricide. Looking more and more like an option."

"Sherlock, you can't kill your mother." He dug around for the final two screws and popped one into his mouth while he worked with the other.

Pointing a finger up at the ceiling, Sherlock grinned. "You're only in trouble if you get caught."

John spoke around the screws. "Look, just tell her no, Molly is not, that you have no immediate plans to reproduce, and leave it at that."

"You have seriously never seen my mother on a tear. She just goes on and on. She had Molly vomiting over it." He sighed, wondering if there was a special god to pray to for strength when it involved his mother. "Oh yeah, and she acts like she single-handedly ended the cold war or something. I am done with it. I either need better anti-anxiety medication, Mrs. Hudson's herbal soothers, or a lot of cocaine in order to deal with her at this point. I can put up with her making me half-insane. But I won't have her upsetting Molly. Our bedroom issues aside, if Molly does not wish for her body to be temporarily for rent, what business is it of anyone else's?"

Sherlock didn't say that he felt singularly unsuited to parenthood. He did, after all, let a baby lick a human skull. "I like sitting for you. I can give her back when I'm done."

"You mean when she's cranky and crying."

Sherlock nodded in approval. He wasn't one for deception. "As I said. When I am done."

They both stepped away from the finished cabinet. "It's level. She picked it out. And all the doors don't open in funny ways." He started picking up things to put back in the cupboard that had been strewn around the sink and counters. "There. We've done it. We're are accomplished gentlemen. We have done a home improvement project."

Sherlock looked over their early evening project. "Accomplished gentlemen indeed. Thank god Molly hasn't thought up any projects for me upstairs. Well, other than the floor thing. But that was Mrs. Hudson's doing."

John shook his head. "You hired a contractor! That doesn't even count!"

"She was threatening to send me to live under a bridge if I didn't! And I had to clean the black stain out of Mrs. Hudson's kitchen floor."

John didn't respond. Sherlock was baiting him at this point.

"Anyhow, ignore my mother. Or tell her what you want. She's probably adopted you and Mary due to my own unwillingness to give her grandchildren. And god knows the likelihood of Mycroft doing such a thing is nil. Not even on accident. Apparently the entire human race is to plebeian for him."

John smirked. "Yeah. I'm not shocked at that. I don't know. I'll talk to Mary. But if it's going to upset Molly, I'll make our excuses. I didn't know she could get that worked up over something like that. Usually even when she disagrees, she just smiles and soldiers on."

"My mother is capable of pushing every single one of someone's buttons. All at once. Without even knowing it. She thinks she's being HELPFUL. It's insidious."

"Anyways, let me know what Molly wants. I'll tell you what Mary says. If we go out, we don't need to drag you along. We're big boys and girls."

"Don't need me to run interference?"

He shrugged. "It was fine last time. I mean, until you drugged everybody and we dashed off to face a serial blackmailer."

"MYCROFT was there. She loves her precious Mycroft who can do no wrong."

Shoving the last of the bathroom stuff onto the top shelf, John looked at a job well-done. "You know, you can't blame everything on Mycroft."

Sherlock held his head high in the air. "Yes I can. Watch me."

"And just what does he have to say about the… Molly situation."

Sherlock shrugged. "He's been oddly silent all of this time. I'm sure it's a trap."

zyx

They were lying on top of the duvet again, just talking. Completely naked. It was generally how they started things, since it had worked the first time. "John can have fun with that, as far as I'm concerned. I don't care what he does. But if you'd prefer he not visit her…"

Molly shrugged. "I don't know. It feels like it isn't my place?"

Sherlock sighed. "I'm sorry," he said again. For the hundredth time.

"It's fine. She just got under my skin. That's all."

"Because we haven't-"

"No. Because I don't think it's anyone's business. Even if I were. Which I am thankfully not. It's just… not their business. People act like everything a woman does is up for debate and opinion and advice. When she started talking about me going back to work I could hear the blood in my ears."

"She already has your whole life planned for you."

Molly ran her hand up his arm. "I feel like you have experience with that."

He shrugged. "I suppose. She wants something that we're not in a position to give her. And that she has no right to demand." He frowned, his fingers following the pattern on the duvet between them. "This might be a bad time to ask. What about… some day in the future? Is that for us?"

"I don't know. I enjoy having a niece to spoil rotten for now. That's good enough for now."

"Yeah. That's what I think." He pretty much knew they were of a similar mind on the topic, but he wanted to be sure. "Revisit the topic in a year?"

"Hmm… six months."

He nodded. "Fair enough." His hand slid up her side, staring at her thigh and resting at her hip bone for a moment. "It's not like we're legally required to reproduce. And anyway, our children would probably just turn out to be beautiful, brilliant hot messes."

She giggled, brushing her fingers along his neck. "Not a one of us will be able to find anything when we're looking for it, and we'll be a family of people late for everything."

His hand slid up to the curve of her hip and stopped, thumb brushing just a bit of her belly. "Family. Hmm." He hadn't really put it in the context of actual family before.

He had only looked at it as simply spawning because that's what people did. John liked it. He adored his daughter and was always the first to tell him about whatever 'amazing' or 'adorable' thing she'd done. And he saw John very much as a family man. But never himself. "So we'd be a family. Are we a family now? Without offspring?"

"They're usually called babies and children, Sherlock. not offspring or spawn." The back of her fingers teased at his collar bone. "Sure we're a family. You and I. And all the other crazy people in this building. Mrs. Hudson makes sure we don't starve. John and Mary are always there for us. No matter what. I think we have a fine family here. Despite all the strange romantic ambiguity that floats around this place."

He laughed. "You've noticed."

"John is hard in love with you. We've all known that for years. And you love him. And you love Mary. And Mary is not afraid to stick her tongue down her neighbor's throat. I'd be the neighbor, by the way. I don't want to know what Mrs. Hudson thinks of all of it. But what's a little romantic or platonic love between friends?"

"Platonic?"

"It's the one where you fall asleep on the sofa curled up with them, but don't necessarily want to buy them wine and roses."

His cheek twitched. "You know a lot about this."

"I am capable of doing a Google search." She ran her hand up and down his chest. "Really. We need to be under the covers. Before I freeze important bits off."

Grinning, he scrambled for the top of the bed and pulled the covers down so they could crawl inside. "Does this mean we have to warm each other up?"

"Probably." Her fingers were already behind his ears, zapping the warmth along his hairline. She moved forward so that her cold chest was pressed against his, and he put his frozen toes against the bottoms of her feet. She laughed at the touch. "We have the silliest foreplay," she admitted, trying to get her legs warm.

"It's been working. I think we're very close this time." In fact, their hips were touching. Which was quite an accomplishment. An odd one to be sure, but an accomplishment.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." His hand slid up the part of her legs. "I don't always feel like I'm falling off a cliff any more."

She smiled. "And you know, if you ever feel like that, I'm always here to catch you."

His fingers found that spot they both liked so much. He made her moan and whimper until one of the fitted sheets popped off the bed, even as her hand clenched around him with a strangling force. When she let go, he rolled on top of her and took his time finding his way inside. He exhaled, taking a moment to enjoy the accomplishment.

The look in her eyes was something between mirth and pride, and it was an image that would go into a special room in his mind palace. "You know, I love you," he whispered.

"I know. And I'm right here. If you feel yourself falling," she reiterated as he started moving inside of her.

At first a choking feeling rose in his throat, but he forced himself to relax. "Even when the lease runs out?"

She gasped and made a sound in the back of her throat that was new. It would be filed in that same special place in the mind palace where Molly things went. "Especially when the lease runs out." She sighed in some lovely way that he decided he liked very much. "I'll live with you under the bridge by the river." Her nails scraped at his arms, sending shivers down his spine.

He grinned and kissed her as they found their rhythm together.

"We'll make the bridge work," he promised.

THE END


End file.
